You can have a thriving ministry without a thriving relationship with God, but only temporarily. Anyone can fake it in the short run, but to go the distance, you need a passionate devotional life and continual closeness to Jesus. Often pastors tend to allow the busyness of ministry and the necessity of studying for sermon preparation to replace a real, personal walk with Jesus. But God wants better for you.

Three T’s for a thriving walk with Jesus are as follows:

Time magazine for May 20, 2013, devotes an entire page to “assessing the creative spark,” a rarity in newsmagazines.

Now, I’m no authority on creativity or anything else, but I have long been fascinated by the subject and attuned to writings dealing with it.

“Creativity is that ineffable match-strike, that flash in the dark that comes to you from, well, it’s hard to say where. You can’t summon it on demand, though inclining your mind to a task does help.” —Time (Jeffrey Kluger, writer)

I know a little about this right-brain activity, being a preacher, a writer, a cartoonist and a storyteller.

Here’s something of what I have learned about creativity:

Have you ever thought about the fact that the biggest giant David ever faced was not on the battlefield but actually the one in the mirror? In an idle, unguarded moment, the “man after God’s own heart” left his spiritual mindset to pursue “forbidden fruit”–if but for a fleeting moment. That’s all it took. The luster of his kingdom would be forever tarnished. David’s biographers have used different phrases to describe the consequences of the king’s fatal attraction to Bathsheba:

• Charles Gulston observes, “he fell a great distance.”
• F.B. Meyer considered it “the sin of his life.”
• Chuck Swindoll called it “the most distressing episode in David’s life.”

In my years leading in business and churches, I have known many people who claim to be leaders, but they are actually nothing more than controllers of people. There is a huge difference in leading and controlling.

In fact, the differences are almost exact opposites.

Here are some characteristics of environments that lead people:

Do you remember going to chapel in Bible college? Every once in a while, one of “the greats” would show up.

You knew you were listening to one of the great communicators when you heard two things:

1. "The Voice." It seemed to me that every great Pentecostal preacher from the early to mid-1900s cultivated what we referred to as "The Voice." It sounded deep, resounding with such vibrato that it just about rocked your bones. Every person in the room instantly snapped to attention when a preacher turned on "The Voice."

“If God says his chosen ones are acceptable to him, can anyone bring charges against them? Or can anyone condemn them? No indeed!” (Rom. 8:33-34 CEV)

Most of us spend our entire lives trying to earn acceptance. We want to earn it from our parents, peers, partners in life, from people we respect, maybe even from people we envy. The drive to be accepted is a deep drive that can influence the kind of clothes you wear, the kind of car you drive, the kind of house you buy, and even the career you choose.

Remember how, as a kid, you wanted so badly to be in the in-crowd that someone would say to you, “I dare you to do this” and suggest something that was either stupid or that put your personal safety at risk. But you did it anyway, because your desire to be accepted overruled the desire for safety.