A business owner this week reminded me that we’d had lunch at a local cafeteria about a year ago, and that he’d been desperate…..less than 30 days from financial ruin. He’d said to me “I may lose it all, the house, the cars, everything, but regardless I’m all in.”

All in. As in, “Committed.” As in, “Ain’t no turnin’ back.” As in, “Run those ships up on the beach and burn them, we’re not sailing back to Europe.”

I’m reminded that Columbus would have never discovered the new world if he could have gotten off the ship in the middle of the storms. Like it or not, he was “all in.”

How “all in” are you? Are you committed, or just contributing? You’ve heard that old joke about the chicken and the pig discussing the farmer’s breakfast of ham and eggs haven’t you? For the chicken it was just a contribution, but for the pig it was a commitment.

As you analyze your performance in life, is it what you want it to be. Do you only having a toe in the water or are you fully immersed? Are you committed, or are you just pretending?

What fear keeps you from being all in?

Where do you want to be a year from now? Can you get there with your present level of commitment?

Fast forward a year with my business owner friend. He told me this week how grateful he was for all that was going on in his life. His personal income had grown to almost six figures……..A MONTH!………..he’d paid off all his personal debt and had several months of living expenses in the bank in CASH. He said “You know, I’m not a quitter. It never would have happened if I hadn’t been ‘all in’.”

Wow!

(March 8, 2009 in the air somewhere over Oklahoma) The 9:00 a.m. news today bore the story of a man I knew. Pastor Fred Winters was shot to death this morning in the pulpit of the church he pastored in Maryville, IL.

Fred and I weren’t friends. I hadn’t seen him in over 20 years; since we used to sit in the same small classes in seminary. But I knew him. These tragedies always seem to happen elsewhere to someone you don’t know. But this time……I knew him.

The Apostle Peter said in chapter 5 of his first epistle that the devil is our opponent, and that he is roaming about like a roaring lion seeking people to devour. This time it was Fred. In devouring Fred he certainly scarred the Winters family, the Maryville church, the citizens of that area, and to a much lesser degree all of us.

It has become popular these days to pooh-pooh talk of evil verses good, or to mislabel the imperfect actions of well-intentioned men (GWB) as evil. Those of us who know the difference between good and evil must speak into the wisdom-vacuum on this topic and call it what it is: the work of our enemy.

I’m not the kind of Christian who sees a Boogie-man behind ever bush, or evil in every person who simply disagrees with me. But I do know the enemy has waited in hiding for me and struck my life in various ways and times, and that I was ill equipped to respond or even to recognize his threats.

I don’t recall in 46 years of church-going, Bible study, or seminary ever being taught how to engage the devil, or protect against him, let alone attack turf that he controls. Yet the Bible clearly states that the defensive gates of hell shall not prevail against those of us who are the Church.

When locked in battle, like the one Fred Winters lost today, or the micro battles we fight daily even with the ones that we love, we must remember the Apostle Paul’s wisdom to us Ephesians 6, that we battle not against flesh and blood, but against world forces of darkness, against spiritual forces in heavenly places. In Maryville, IL a gunman held the weapon, but Satan pulled the trigger.

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal (of the weak flesh) but mighty, for the destruction of strongholds the enemy has in the lives of people (II Cor 10:2). We have the power, but we don’t use it well, and often not at all.

Wise up! Don’t be afraid, but also don’t remain unaware. The Kingdom of Darkness is always trying to steal from the Kingdom of Light.

Speak up! Call evil what it is.

Man up! Speak clearly. Address Satan verbally (aloud), forcefully, and clearly. Leave no mistake about what’s God’s and command him to keep his hands off. The Bible promises in James 4 that if we resist (that’s being active, not passive) the Devil he will flee, and that if we draw near to God (again, action on our part) that God will draw near to us.

To Hell with the devil. And God bless the family of Fred Winters and the First Baptist Church of Maryville, IL.

OK, my friends who are reading this are belly laughing now that Barry Watts would dare write anything about humility. But, let’s think about this together.

Humility isn’t weakness. Power can be humbly expressed, and is when you recognize that you aren’t strong, mighty, or powerful in and of yourself. The power comes through you, not from you. On the other hand, false humility often projects itself when appropriate praise and honor is deflected, when soft weakness is offered where strength is needed, when you hold back when your world (or company, or family, or church) need you to step-up, speak-up, and stand firm.

A pastor friend and I were visiting recently about a professional we both knew who’d come upon some hard times, gotten into some trouble, lost licensure and certification, and ultimately all the family’s substantial income. The pastor said “I don’t sense that (anonymous) has really taken responsibility and repented. I think (anonymous) continues to place blame on others.”

In my own life, I’ve discovered that you can’t ever become something greater than you are, until you are empty of yourself. Until you can stand before God and say with the Old Testament Prophet Isaiah “Woe is me. I am a sinner.” and sing with the saints “Nothing in my hand I bring, only to Thy cross I cling” then you are still full of yourself, and there’s no room for God to work in your life.

Many of us will eventually get empty; either voluntarily, or by violent force. We’ll come to the end of our rope and when we do, then, our usefulness to God begins to bloom. That’s the way it happened with me. My usefulness to God was limited when I was a clergyman because I was terribly insecure and felt that I needed to protect myself. I wasn’t honest and real, because I feared what people would think of me. When I reached the end of my own rope and embraced emotionally what I knew intellectually—that God loved me because He was good, not because I was impressive—then I grew very comfortably in my own skin, no longer needed to impress, and found myself in an open and teachable frame of mind. That’s when God opened His rich truths to me and I began to grow and become what God wanted me to be all along: a tool in His hand (remember, the tool doesn’t get credit for the masterpiece, the craftsman does).

Humility is required for learning. I’ve discovered that people who need to speak can’t listen and who need to teach can’t learn. It takes humility to be quiet, to learn, to consider ideas to which you may at first want to react negatively. It is humility to stand before someone and say “please teach me what you know.”

Ultimately, you and I can either be full of ourselves, and there’ll never be room for the greater things in our life. Or we can quiet ourselves, open our heart and mind, learn, stretch, grow, develop, and become effective in our living—a person truly worth knowing.

Don’t let your ego get in the way of your progress.

Before anything is invented, developed, created, or done, someone first has to think of it. It is first a thought, before it becomes a thing. Nothing exists that wasn’t first a thought.

Thoughts become things.

What are you thinking?

You have not because you ask not.

You ask not because you believe not.

You believe not because you think not.

You think not because you think wrongly.

Change your mind. Change your results.