Your life and your ministry will be defined by how well you follow your Lord. But what does it look like, practically speaking, to put Jesus first in your life and yourself second?

Well, here’s what it doesn’t look like: It doesn’t look like giving yourself a green light to do whatever pleases you rather than meeting the needs of others.

This is in no way an invitation to self-indulgence or laziness. Instead, it’s about making two intentional decisions about your priorities and then protecting those decisions:

Decision #1: Dedicate daily time to your personal fellowship with Jesus.

Decision #2: Dedicate daily time to growing yourself in the ways He leads you.

To gauge how well you are doing with these two prioritizations right now, consider these options:

• At what time of day do you pull away to focus on your relationship with God?
• Is your day so fully scheduled with ministry and family demands that it’s hard to find time to maintain your connection to Jesus or to let Him grow you?

How often do you put time and energy into godly goal setting or into the training that could make you a better servant?

An overly packed schedule is a major obstacle to being able to hear from God. If you don’t intentionally invest time in your relationship with Jesus, the other things clamoring for your attention will get in the way. But when you make a decision to rightly align and protect your priorities, you will change the way you manage your time (read: your life), no matter what else is going on. Let me challenge you to carve out time every day to unapologetically focus on your relationship with God and on the things He wants to do in and through you.

– Nelson Searcy and Jennifer Dykes Henson

The above excerpt is from pgs. 38-39 of The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life and Ministry.

Drawing from Nelson Searcy’s decades of ministry experience, The Renegade Pastor is a relevant, step-by-step resource for church leaders who are ready to step up in surrender to the pursuit of God’s best for his or her life and work.

P.S. – Click here to grab your copy from Amazon today!

Your partner in ministry,

Nelson

© Nelson Searcy. All Rights Reserved.

About Nelson Searcy

Nelson Searcy is an experienced church growth strategist, pastor, church planter and coach, consulting with churches around the world. As founder of Church Leader Insights and the Renegade Pastors Network, he has personally trained more than 3,500 church leaders in over 45 denominations through live events, seminars and monthly coaching. Nelson is also the Founding and Lead Pastor of The Journey Church, with locations across New York City and in Boca Raton, FL. Nelson and his church routinely appear on lists such as “The 50 Most Influential Churches” and “The 25 Most Innovative Leaders.” He is the author of over 100 church growth resources and 18+ books, including The Renegade Pastor: Abandoning Average in Your Life, Ministry and The Difference Maker: Using Your Everyday Life for Eternal Impact, and At the Cross with the People Who Were There. He and his wife, Kelley, have one son, Alexander.