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"Run from all these evil things."  1 Timothy 6:11 (NLT)Pastor, do you have an escape plan for the moment you're tempted? Do you have anything in place to keep you away from your biggest temptations before they ever reach you? If you don't have those things, you need them now.You carry more than most people ever see. And that weight is part of what makes certain temptations so appealing: the shortcut, the secret, the compromise you're sure no one would catch.First, when you find yourself tempted, you need a panic button. An emergency plan. The Bible is clear about what that plan is: You run.Paul tells Timothy, a young pastor, "Run from all these evil things" (1 Timothy 6:11 NLT).Move quickly out of any situation that tempts you. Never argue with a temptation. You'll always lose. Emotions take over, and emotions aren't always logical.It doesn't matter what the temptation is. It could be the pull to cut a corner with money or shade the numbers you report. It could be a sexual temptation. Whatever it is, your response should be the same: Get out.But better than running from temptation is preventing it in the first place. Another way to say it is this: If you don't want to get stung, stay away from the bees.Don't wait until you're alone, exhausted, and discouraged to decide you'll stay faithful. You have to make that decision ahead of time, and then keep yourself out of the situation, because when you're empty, the pull is stronger than your willpower.The same principle runs all through ministry.If you know you get short with your family on Sunday nights when you're spent, build a strategy for it now. Guard a slower evening. Protect some quiet before the hardest stretch of your week.Don't wait until a questionable decision is sitting in front of you to decide your ministry will be above reproach. Build accountability into how you lead, with people who can ask you anything, so you're not standing in that moment by yourself.Take time today to put a few of those preventative strategies in place. And when they don't hold, keep your emergency plan ready: Don't resist temptation; run from it. That's the simplest and surest way out.

Pastor, here in the United States this is the week we celebrate our freedom, and many of you will work a line about it into Sunday's sermon. If you minister in another country, stay with me. The freedom I most want for you was never about a flag anyway. So here is the harder question: Are you actually free?A lot of us preach freedom in Christ on Sunday and then live all week as if everything depends on us. We can't stop working. We feel guilty when we rest. We lie awake running tomorrow's list.We have a name for that today: workaholism. The Bible doesn't use the word, but it has plenty to say about it. And "dedicated" isn't it.“Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit" (Proverbs 23:4 NLT). God honors hard work, but he calls wearing yourself out foolishness. Ecclesiastes says it even more bluntly: "Only someone too stupid to find his way home would wear himself out with work" (Ecclesiastes 10:15 GNT).So why do we do it? Why do we run ourselves into the ground for a church that belongs to Jesus anyway? It usually comes down to what is driving us underneath.Notice what's really driving youFor most of us, the engine is insecurity. There is a voice that whispers, "You're a nobody. Prove yourself." So you keep working to prove your worth. And that voice is never satisfied. You finish something good, and the voice says, "That's fine, but it's not enough." So you work more.For others, it is worry. "I am worn out by my worries," the psalmist said (Psalm 55:2 GNT). You can't afford a day off, because the fear of dropping the ball keeps you going.And sometimes, if you’re honest, it’s comparison. You look at the church down the road or the pastor with the bigger platform, and you tell yourself you just need to do a little more.None of those chains come from God. They come from inside you. And Jesus wants to set you free from every one of them.Realize your worthThe first step toward freedom is settling the question your insecurity keeps asking."See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God's children—and so, in fact, we are" (1 John 3:1 GNT). God says you are precious in his sight (Isaiah 43:4).When that truth finally sinks past your head and into your heart, a load lifts off your back. You stop having to prove yourself. God already loves you. He already approves of you. You don't have to earn it in the pulpit on Sunday.So ask yourself the freedom question: What am I trying to prove, and to whom?Enjoy what God has already givenFreedom also means contentment."All of us should eat and drink and enjoy what we have worked for. It is God's gift" (Ecclesiastes 3:13 GNT). For most of us, the pull isn't money. It's more. A bigger crowd. A stronger program. More influence. We get so fixated on the church we wish we had that we miss the one God actually gave us.But the people in your pews this Sunday are a gift. This season of ministry, limits and all, is a gift. Contentment is learning to receive what God has given instead of resenting what he hasn't.So enjoy the people he has actually entrusted to you and the work he has actually called you to. Ask yourself: How much would finally be enough?Limit your labor on purposeHere is where freedom gets practical. Limiting your work is a decision, not a feeling."You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me" (Exodus 20:9-10 GNT). God built rest into the week. When you refuse to take it, you are not being more faithful. You are arguing with the way he made you.So put it on paper. Decide how many hours you’ll work, how many evenings you’ll be at home, which day you’ll take off. If you need to, ask someone to hold you to it.The freedom you preach is yours to liveThis week, while the fireworks go off and you remind your people that Christ has set their spirits free, hear it for yourself. You don't have to prove anything. You don't have to try to carry what only God really can carry.The church is his. Your worth is settled. So work hard this week. Then stop. Rest in the freedom you keep preaching to everyone else.

"If someone does wrong to you, do not pay him back by doing wrong to him. Try to do what everyone thinks is right. Do your best to live in peace with everyone." Romans 12:17-18 (NCV)Pastor, can God bring something good out of being criticized, attacked, or treated unfairly in ministry?He can. It's just hard to believe in the moment, when the email lands, when the comment thread turns ugly, when someone in your own church decides you're the problem.When someone wrongs you, the pull to defend yourself or set the record straight is strong. But God is just. It's his job to discipline, to restore, and to turn things around for good."If someone does wrong to you, do not pay him back by doing wrong to him. Try to do what everyone thinks is right. Do your best to live in peace with everyone. My friends, do not try to punish others when they wrong you, but wait for God to punish them with his anger. It is written: 'I will punish those who do wrong; I will repay them,' says the Lord" (Romans 12:17-19 NCV).Notice the words "do your best." In other words, live in peace with everyone as much as possible. God says it that way because he knows ministry sometimes puts you near some people who are almost impossible to get along with. When you're attacked, God is asking you to walk away, not to retaliate. You might say, "But you don't know what they've done. They've hurt me. They've hurt my family. I want to get even."Here's why it’s so powerful to walk away. Critics want to hook you. They want your attention, your reaction, your time. They can't stand being ignored. It's the same online, where it feels almost impossible to leave an attack sitting in the comments without answering. But when you refuse to react, you take the control back. If they can't engage you, they can't control you.Anytime you say, "You make me so mad," you've handed someone else the controls to your own heart. You don't want to do that. Don't give anyone that kind of power over you.Romans 12 puts a choice in front of you: Will you take revenge yourself, or leave the situation in God’s hands?Refuse to retaliate. Walk away. Let it go. And let God do his work.

You know the feeling. You've got a list this week that actually matters: Call everyone in your small group, prep the lesson, recruit a few volunteers, rehearse the music for Sunday. You know you'll be glad when it's done. You know people are counting on you. And still, you can't make yourself start.After decades of ministry, here's what I've learned about that moment: It’s up to me to keep my own fire burning. I don't focus on motivating other people; I only worry about motivating myself. If I stay motivated, it becomes contagious. People catch your enthusiasm, and they catch your vision. So your first job isn't to light a fire under everyone else; it's to keep your own burning.That's harder than it sounds, because so much of ministry is plain mundane. There's no thrill in stuffing bulletins or setting up and taking down. But Paul says, "Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58 NIV). The Good News Translation says it this way: "You know that nothing you do in the Lord's service is ever useless" (1 Corinthians 15:58). Jesus said even a cup of cold water given in his name counts. The work matters. The real question is how you keep going when you don't feel like it.Here's how I do it. It comes down to three things: Get it on paper, get started, and keep the fire burning.Plan it: Get it out of your head and onto paper.Most of the weight you're carrying isn't the work itself. It's the vague sense that you're not getting it all done. Dawson Trotman, who founded The Navigators ministry in the 1930s, said, "Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and the fingertips." If I can say it and write it down, it's clear. If I haven't written it down, it stays vague. And vague is heavy.So write out what you want to accomplish. Then break it down until it's small enough that you have no excuse not to start. When I planted Saddleback, I'd never started a church in my life. So I got a stack of cards and wrote one task on each: Rent a building, print a bulletin, find someone to lead music, line up nursery workers. Then I laid them out, put them in order, and worked backward from opening day until I knew exactly what had to happen first.Inch by inch, anything's a cinch. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Decide what comes first, put a date on it, and you've turned a mountain into a next step.Start it: The launch is the hard part.Here's the most honest thing I can tell you about motivation. Most of the time when we say "I can't," what we really mean is "I don't want to." Be honest enough to know the difference. Some days you just have to get tough with yourself and do it whether you feel like it or not.Because here's the secret of success in one sentence: Successful people have developed the habit of doing things unsuccessful people don't feel like doing.Give it five minutes.When a task feels too big, I play a game with myself. I call it the Five-Minute Game. I tell myself, "I don't want to do this, but I'll give it five minutes." Almost every time, once I get going, it's not nearly the deal I thought it was.I've written books that way. I'd roll a blank sheet into the typewriter, type "My Next Book, by Rick Warren," and pull it back out. Sometimes that's all I did. Then I got up and walked away. But I'd started. Once the rocket is off the launch pad, the rest gets easier. How many projects have sat around your house for six months until the day you finally did one and thought, "Why did I wait? That took 25 minutes."Don't wait until it's perfect.Perfectionism produces procrastination. It paralyzes you. We tell ourselves, "If I can't do it well, I won't do it at all." But very few things in this world are ever perfect. If it's worth doing, do it, whether you do it perfectly or not. Give yourself the right to make mistakes, and you'll stop letting indecision freeze you in place.Sustain it: Keep your own fire burning.Starting is one battle. Staying motivated over the long haul is another. A few things keep me going.Remember the payoff. When my mind isn't there after a long week, I ask myself, "How am I going to feel when this is finished? What's it going to accomplish?" The Bible says Jesus endured the cross because he looked to the joy beyond it. Much of ministry is mundane, and you do it for the result, not the thrill.Stay optimistic. Optimism creates energy. The person who says "I can" and the person who says "I can't" are both right. I've walked into church sure I wouldn't make it through the day, then reminded myself, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13 NKJV). Tell yourself you can.Don't carry it alone. If a big task is all on you, you'll probably put it off. Get a partner. "Two are better than one. . . . A cord of three strands is not quickly broken" (Ecclesiastes 4:9, 12 NIV). If you schedule time with someone to complete a task together, you're far more likely to actually do it.I keep a running list of one-liners taped where I can see them when I need a nudge:Do the worst first. Doing beats stewing. If not today, when? Winners don't wait. Beginning is half done. Choose this day to use this day.So get started.Pick the one ministry task you've been avoiding this week. Don't wait until you feel like it. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Give it five minutes, and let your own motivation do the rest. Nothing you do in the Lord's service is ever without value, and the fire you keep burning is the one your people will catch.