Are You a Blessing or a Curse?

 Good management and stewardship results in happy people.

Solomon's humility led to wisdom. The wisdom God gave him led to fame, prosperity, and honor. It also created an environment of blessing, happiness, peace, and prosperity for his people. And the blessing of those who live under the influence of a wise, God-honoring individual results in praise and thanksgiving to God.(1 Kings 10:6-9) Blessing, righteousness, and justice come from the hand of God.

For those of us in ministry, with influence and the ability to steward authority: are you a greater benefit or detriment to those under you? Does your presence bring joy?  Or confusion, sadness, and fear? Are people happy to see you come and sad to see you go? Or is it the opposite?

Jesus is our example. Those who reflect and imitate Him walk in love and the evidence is in the response of those who don't have a choice but to interact with you. 

Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, we also are in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister. (1 John 4:7-21)