Responsibility: The Key to Authority (part 3)| Jay Fesperman
Responsibility: The Key to Authority (part 3)| Jay Fesperman
“As a young man, (I’m 22, living at home, but in my senior year at University) I am in a dilemma. Everywhere – at home, in school, on the job, or on the street – someone else is telling me how to live my life. At the same time I am required to fulfill a lot of responsibility. I don’t seem to have any authority at all. Tell me please, how do I fit this into God’s plan for maturity in my life? How do I learn to exercise authority without having the experience of being IN authority?”
Several years ago, I was joined in my seat on the plane by neat young man who began to inquire about my business. He was fascinated by my activity and putting together joint ventures between American and European firms, my working out of licensing arrangements between international companies, etc. Being an ambitious young man with an MBA from Harvard, he wanted to know, “How does one get into that kind of work?” My answer, very simply, was, “Thirty years at hard labor!”
Responsibility: The Key to Authority (part 2)| Jay Fesperman
“As a young man, (I’m 22, living at home, but in my senior year at University) I am in a dilemma. Everywhere – at home, in school, on the job, or on the street – someone else is telling me how to live my life. At the same time I am required to fulfill a lot of responsibility. I don’t seem to have any authority at all. Tell me please, how do I fit this into God’s plan for maturity in my life? How do I learn to exercise authority without having the experience of being IN authority?”
As I continue to share with you regarding manliness, please think of it also as that state of MATURITY that has taken you out of the condition of childhood or boyishness into the grown-up man of God that you are meant to be. Paul spoke on many occasions to Timothy, calling him “my SON“. However, he later addressed him as “brother”. At one point he told Timothy, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because of your youth…“, and shortly afterwards he told this young man, “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father.“
Responsibility: The Key to Authority (part 1)| Jay Fesperman
A question in the mail: “As a young man, (I’m 22, living at home, but in my senior year at University) I am in a dilemma. Everywhere – at home, in school, on the job, or on the street – someone else is telling me how to live my life. At the same time I am required to fulfill a lot of responsibility. I don’t seem to have any authority at all. Tell me please, how do I fit this into God’s plan for maturity in my life? How do I learn to exercise authority without having the experience of being IN authority?”