David CM Bell Leadership Blog

 Revelation 3:1-6 - A Good Reputation As a Christian leader, your reputation is key to your qualification to lead (1 Timothy 3:1-7).  I’m a Southern Baptist and I love our church governance tradition of having membership and asking the members for critical input before we ordain a church leader and before we make major decisions of any sort.  Yes, we have leaders, elders, and deacons.  God expects order and good governance.  The Holy Spirit gifts us with many gifts including the gift of leadership to some.  But the reason we call together the members is because that is the model we see in Acts.  It's God's way.  And we ignore it to our peril.  And it is a key way to get honest feedback about the reputation of our leaders.  We must not tolerate evil people.  If our members give a bad report on a leader.  Take decisive action.  We do not let those with bad reputations lead.  They’ve earned their reputation.  Like...

  Revelation 2:18-29 - Merit, Excellence, and Integrity One more thought on this message to the fourth church of chapter two - and then we can move on to the messages to three more churches in chapter three.  There’s a lot of talk in management circles about how to go from good to great.  (Well, first ya gotta be good.)           Jesus applauds the Church of Thyatira for their core values.  They were known for love, faith, service, patient endurance, and continuous improvement in those things.  This is a message from God to hold tightly to those core values and to grow in them daily.  It’s a message that God keeps it simple.  God loves a clear message.  And that’s what he gives the Thyatirans.  He tells them to reject the false teachers - those who love money and the things of this world - and to hold tightly to their first love.           R emarkably, Jesus tells the church that i...

 Revelation 2:18-29 - Eyes Like Flames of Fire This is one of those passages of Scripture that I wished the church worldwide would pause and reflect on for a month.  It has the power to turn the church upside down for momentous growth and in turn, to bring revival worldwide.  It is a victorious message of encouragement.  It is a message of the need to be right and to stay right with God Almighty. It is God who men must look to.  Not politicians, governments, family members, political parties, or our employers.  God alone; fear God alone.  “Our God’s hand of protection is on all who worship him, but his fierce anger rages against those who abandon him.” (Ezra 8:22).  May we never be against God and what He cares for and loves.  May we be clear about where God stands and may we stand alongside Him. Our words and actions show our love and faith in God.  When we look closely at the perfect law that sets us free (James 1:25) we are embo...

 Revelation 2:12-17 - Confidence in Crisis Stock markets go down and stock markets go up.  Wars, civil unrest, crooked politicians, the rise and fall of another celebrity pastor.  There is nothing new under the sun.  Even during the Civil War and every war since, the sun rises daily and the seasons come in order.  God's mercy is new each morning.           Disorder and dysfunction - yes, indeed.  We have them aplenty.  But don’t miss God’s patience and the consistent growth of His Church.  In the midst of seeming calamity be ever more confident in Christ.           God’s church is forcefully advancing worldwide.  The Rock that broke the Roman Empire is growing His church into a Great Mountain that will fill the whole earth (Daniel 2).  We hear in Revelation that Jesus is the ruler of all the Kings of the world (1:5).  This does not mean that each corrupt leader like Chave...

 Revelation 2:8-11 - From a Rock to a Great Mountain Weakness and strength are a funny thing.  You see that in hockey.  Often the quiet leaders are the toughest on the ice.  And the bullies and tough guys in practice or on the bus become cowards in the heat of battle.  That’s the beauty of playoff hockey.  It takes 16 wins to get the Stanley Cup.  Much easier said than done.  Those who persevere to get their name on that cup well deserve it.          A similar thing  may be said of the Crown of Life that Jesus will give on Judgment day to those who love Him (James 1:12).  Life, although short, is like playoff hockey.  It takes true strength - something we can get only from the Holy Spirit.           Often strength isn’t what we think it is.  Jesus may have looked weak and fragile and in broken spirit and body on the Cross of Calvary.  Yet there is nothing more powerf...

  Revelation 2 - Grace and Responsibility There but for the grace of God goes David Bell (1 Corinthians 15:10-11).  Grace and responsibility go hand in hand.  Yes, we give unto Caesar what is his, but what do we give unto God?  We are called to put love into action, to take responsibility for our actions, and to choose this day whose we are and what we will love and hate. Hating evil means taking responsibility.  That’s the blessing of God’s patience, mercy, and grace.  He allows us to take responsibility.  We get to choose what we will think, act, and do today.  Yet what seems so simple and straightforward is yet so foreign to our human nature.  We see plainly that corrupt people seem to get ahead.  And so many denominations have drifted beyond the ledge.  They no longer reflect anything of orthodoxy.  There are dreadful consequences for the church that tolerates evil people - that’s Jesus’ message to the Ephesians.  ...

 Revelation 2:1-7 - A Culture of Discipline In modern parlance, you’d say the early church, according to Jesus’ assessment of it in this passage, was based.  It was unapologetically Christian.  It feared God and loved God.  It worked hard.  It was marked by fellowship, unity in Christ, love of God and love of the Body of Christ, refusal to tolerate evil people, discerning as to who was genuine and who was a liar, willing to patiently endure suffering for Jesus, hating evil, and a stubborn refusal to quit. We can learn a lot about the Ephesian church 2,000 years ago via this passage that gives Jesus' “report card” on the early church.  However, we can, more importantly, learn and understand God’s assessment of how we are lining up with Jesus’ standards for our church.  Is God’s warning that He will remove the church’s lampstand from its place among the churches also a warning to the church today?  I think so. Jesus commands hard work.  G...

 Revelation 2 - Hard Work When we think of the church's first principles, we often look to Luke’s church birth and early history in Acts.  Or to the letters from Paul to Titus, Timothy, the Corinthians, Thessalonians, and Ephesians.  And rightly so.  Likewise, t his message in Revelation 2:2 to the angel of the church in Ephesus hammers home the importance of the principle of Christian hard work.  The message was to the church in Ephesus is also to the entire body of Christ for all time (2:7, 11, 17, 23; 3:6, 13, and 22).  Jesus expects us to hear Him here and to put our faith into action.  Hard work.           Hebrews tells us that “it is impossible to please God without faith” (11:6).  But how is that faith shown?  By obedience and hard work.  James plainly states that the key for the faithful servant of Jesus Christ, like Abraham, is that our faith and actions must work together.  That is, our acti...

 Revelation 1:12-16 - A Sharp Two-Edged Sword God longs for His people to be loyal, thankful, grateful, and faithful.  An honorable people because of who we are and what we do.  God is not blind.  He sees when His people ignore Him and vigorously pursue everything but Him, like a glib adulterous prostitute (Hosea 2).  How often do we make decisions based on money or self-interest rather than honoring God with righteousness?           Yet God, by His very nature loves us so much that He pursues His children, like a Shepherd pursuing a lost sheep.  God, in ever more spectacular and creative ways, wins us back and calls us His children.  As John says, we are “His dear children.” And we, in unison, reply by calling the risen Messiah our Lord and our Saviour.           It is striking that God put a complete end to the old way (Hebrews 8:13) and entered into a new covenant with His people  (J...

 Revelation 1 - Stop the Bleeding There’s a great expectation when you are playing hockey.  You sit in the dressing room together as a team, music playing.  You have your own little ritual of how you gear up and often you sit beside the same guys (at home or on the road).  Before you hit the ice some guys talk a lot.  Other leaders say very little.  You are all preparing mentally for the game that’s just before you.           I vividly remember playing for the Spokane Chiefs in the fall of 1989 after being traded there from the Saskatoon Blades.  Spokane had a tremendous team of young talent.  I was traded to Swift Current later that season, but I loved playing for the Chiefs.  They would go on to win the Memorial Cup the following year (1991).  It was such a fun team to play on.  We had a Vietnam vet as our trainer.  He was a chain smoker, but he loved us.  I knew from the moment I got into...

 Revelation 1:1-3 - Back to the Future In Revelation, we find the beloved Apostle John exiled to the island of Patmos for preaching the word of God and for his testimony about Jesus.  John is calling us to certainty in Christ and to patient endurance.  But, importantly, John was writing down the vision that the Almighty One gave him about things that had just begun to happen so that the early church would be both warned of persecution and encouraged they get through it.           As you know, I’m just a farm boy from Saskatchewan.  I’m no theologian.  I’m a sinner saved by Jesus.  I am reading Scripture just as you are, but I confess I don’t feel like I know enough about Greek, Jewish, or Roman history to fully understand what went on in the first century AD.  By the grace of God, we are allowed to learn and grow in our understanding.  Christians are responsible for hearing, understanding, and obeying God’s word....