Walk This Way, Walk His Way: Effectiveness through the Greatest Commandment

By Kevin Shoemaker

Christianity, and its influence on society, is rapidly decreasing in the world in which we live, but the desire for spirituality continues to rise. How can we, as believers in Jesus Christ, be more effective for the Kingdom of God? This book proposes by living in the freedom and power of Jesus Christ.
In its pages, author Kevin Shoemaker, leads you through belief in and knowledge of Jesus Christ, then helps you to live out your walk through the Greatest Commandments ever given by God—to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength...and to love your neighbor as yourself.
Kevin expertly pieces apart the proposed problem, sifts through suggested solutions, and assists in applying it all to your personal life. He will guide you on an exploration of Jesus’ expansion of the command “to love our neighbor as ourselves;” and instructs you on what it takes to keep your silver polished—how to remain in the freedom and power of Jesus Christ.
Join Kevin on a journey of discovery and growth in Walk this Way, Walk His Way!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin Shoemaker
• Release date: Oct 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781943027019

Kevin Shoemaker

Kevin Shoemaker grew up in the Midwest playing baseball, golf and tennis. His affinity for math and science led him to attend Iowa State University where he earned a B.S. in chemical engineering. While at ISU, Kevin met his wife, Barb, on a blind date. Today, Kevin, his wife and their dog reside in Omaha, NE. They are blessed to have four grown children and five grandchildren. Kevin’s identity as a child of God and co-heir with Christ permeate all aspects of his life. His love of books, management, leadership and effectiveness have led him to found Maker Ministries, an organization whose goal is to develop effective disciples of Jesus Christ.

Book preview

Walk This Way,

Walk His Way

Effectiveness through

the Greatest Commandment

By

Kevin Shoemaker

Walk This Way, Walk His Way © 2015 Kevin Shoemaker

Published by Electric Moon Publishing

Papillion, NE 68046

www.emoonpublishing.com

eBook ISBN: 978-1-943027-01-9

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-943027-02-6

Cover Design:Erin Pille, Electric Moon Publishing Creative Art Department

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, except brief quotations in articles, reviews or studies, without prior permission from the author. Contact Electric Moon Publishing for details.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

License Notes

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Dedication

This book is dedicated first and foremost to God for creating us, Jesus Christ for saving us, and the Holy Spirit for sustaining us.

I also want to dedicate this book to my entire family. May it bring blessings upon my children’s, children’s children and those who come after them.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyrights

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter One: The Problem

Chapter Two: The Solution

Chapter Three: Love God

Chapter Four: Love Self

Chapter Five: Love Neighbor

Chapter Six: An Even Higher Love

Chapter Seven: Polish the Silver—Sustainable Christian Effectiveness

Conclusion

Appendix A

Bibliography

About the Author

Introduction

I believe God has a calling for each of us. Through my time in prayer, studying the Scriptures, and meditation over God’s Word, I came to a conclusion: I need to write a book. After extensive training in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey, and studying the Old and New Testaments, I felt certain the subject of my future written work would surround our effectiveness as a Christian. I pictured something like The 7 Habits of a Highly Effective Christian, Fueled by Jesus Christ. God, as He often does, led me in a totally different direction; a direction near and dear to His heart. It was a path that would look at Christian effectiveness, not from the perspective of a habit, but at Christian effectiveness from the perspective of a command, the Greatest Command—to Love the Lord your God, with all of your heart and all of your mind and all of your soul and all of your strength, and then secondly to Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:30-31 NIV).

This had not been my idea, not my original path, but God’s will acted on my will and led me in a new direction. Along this path, I have had my moments of doubt and procrastination, making me question why me? Hadn’t God inspired many men far greater than me to write His Word? Why had I been chosen for this task?

But the quest to write this book remained on my heart and grew stronger. I realized God used ordinary people throughout the Bible. Why not me? Am I not just like those ordinary people God wrote about in His Scripture? By education, I am a chemical engineer. By profession, I have been in operations management for the past thirty-four years. Throughout my life, I have been a student of leadership and effectiveness. I have taught The 7 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey for twenty-three years, and I have been a Christian for as long as I can remember. On my resume, I have been a follower of Jesus Christ for fifty-two years.

Like most Christians, I have walked the line in my Christian faith between doing things for God and doing things for myself. I have been caught in the battle between my old-sinful-self and the new-free-from-sin-self in Christ. I even found myself rationalizing my behavior about what is and is not sin. That led me to a crossroads, where, down on my knees, I committed to God to do things His way—to make His will a priority, rather than my own. Since then, I have tried to passionately and effectively live out the Greatest Commandment by loving God with all of my heart, with all of my mind, with all of my soul, and with all of my strength: my whole person, my whole being. And furthermore, to love my neighbor as myself. God laid this heavily on my heart. He has given me certainty.

Like my personal example, God can bend, shape, and mold what we originally think to be the best outcome, to better fit His will. With a more Godly perspective, we gain the ability to take a different direction, and find something very new using words written long ago—a look at effectiveness through the lens of God’s Word.

So what does this effectiveness look like?

Effectiveness is a popular topic around the world today. There has been a shift from focusing on efficiency alone to the more holistic approach of effectiveness. While efficiency tends to deal more with the doing of tasks, effectiveness deals with the whole package:

-the tasks,

-the means,

-the methods, and

-the results.

Not only the facilitation of tasks leading to the accomplishment of goals and objectives, but the means and methods to get there, and most importantly the people and relationships along the way. It may be hard to be efficient in relationships, but you can be effective with them.

Jesus was asked this question, Of all the commandments, which is the most important? The most important one, answered Jesus, is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these (Mark 12:28-31 NIV).

If Jesus Himself said that the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second greatest is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, wouldn’t it be logical to evaluate Christian effectiveness from that perspective? Thus is the goal of this written work; to give insight to personal effectiveness around this command in an attempt to enhance our effectiveness in the kingdom of God.

In Walk this Way, Walk His Way, we will explore the problem Christians face today in being effective, dive into the solution to this problem, and evaluate how we can enhance our effectiveness in God’s kingdom. This can be broken down into three areas that Jesus addressed in the command: Love God, Love Self, and Love Neighbor. You will notice Love Self is placed before Love Neighbor, which may seem backward. However, through Jesus’ statement, He alludes to the fact that we already love ourselves when He says to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Questions to ponder as you read:

–Why did God give me free will, the ability to choose?

–Is it possible to be sin-free in Jesus Christ?

–Can I truly love my neighbor, if I do not love myself?

–How do I love others as Jesus loves me? What sacrifice must I make?

–How do the principles proposed in this book work together to increase my effectiveness in the kingdom of God?

Join me as we learn effective Christian living through the Greatest Commandment!

Chapter One

The Problem

My Story

In 1996, I hit a major crossroad in my life. Since adolescence, I had attended church, and youth group, and worked hard at whatever my mind and hands found to do. Notable achievements dotted my path: high school class president, Sons of the American Revolution award winner, four-year letterman in college tennis, a wonderful wife, a B.S. in chemical engineering, three great kids, and an amazing new job. Above all, I cannot remember a day when I did not believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior.

In some ways, it seemed very strange to be sitting in a chair in my bedroom, face to face with God in prayer. A deep need permeated my heart—the need to tell Him where I stood with Him—where I stood in life. God had given me an opportunity to go to North Dakota to build a $250 million corn wet milling plant. My professional life looked good. But, in my heart, something threw up a warning sign. Something seemed to be missing in the way I had been choosing to live my life.

My oldest son had just returned from a youth retreat entitled This Rock Does Not Roll. He could not stop talking about God. He dove into Scripture on a daily basis, and his life showed visible change. My son seemed less interested in kid stuff and more interested in God’s impact on his life. We attended a Methodist church in Wahpeton, North Dakota and during worship he began lifting his hands in praise. We don’t lift our hands like that in the Methodist church! This is unheard of! What did they do to this kid when he was at this retreat? I had to find out. I needed to understand why my child seemed so suddenly immersed in his faith.

As I sat on the chair in my bedroom, the truth began to take form. Through prayer and time with God, I realized that, although I believed in God, my life seemed more of a convenient and compliant Christian instead of a committed and convicted Christian. I went to church most Sundays, volunteered for committees, had held the position as an elder, and supported the church financially. However, I would turn to God only when I really believed I needed Him, and relied on myself the rest of the time. Convicted that my efforts were falling short of what God wanted from me, I admitted I had not been reading His Word, understanding His character, or truly Walking His Way.

Being convinced of my errors, I knelt at my bed and committed to read God’s Word like I had never read it before. Okay God—okay God, I will do it Your way from now on. Not my way. Please forgive my selfishness, once again, Lord, and lead me to do Your will, not mine.

Months later, after a significant time of reading God’s Word (the whole Bible twice), study, and prayer, I began to understand the holistic approach God had planned for all Christians, and the relationship He wanted to have with us. God’s character and His desire for us to be Christ-like in all of our ways became clearer.

Praise the Lord that He used my son and his fire for God to bring clarity to my confusion. His example of loving God and loving others led me to study and meditate on God’s Word. I had lived many selfish moments of my life convinced in some feel good way that I had given God plenty of my time.

At a certain point in the process of discovery, I prayed for God to break me. I prayed that the Holy Spirit would flush out all of my sins before God so I could confess them and ask for forgiveness. I wholly confessed that Jesus Christ was my Savior and that I believe in Him with my whole heart, soul, mind, and body. It wasn’t that I did not believe in Him before, but for me it was the start of a much deeper relationship with Him. I knew I needed the help of God to accomplish this step in my life. I now believed I knew Him, to the best of my mortal capabilities. I knew where I stood and I trusted where God stood. In my brokenness, I connected with the Almighty. In complete vulnerability, at that moment, humbly on my knees, I did my best to listen to what God had to say to me—a task which takes practice. Yet, in that state of humility before Almighty God, I felt so very free.

Foundation of the Problem

After my kneeling-at-my-bed profession, my life was different. I submitted to God and my heart changed. He started to lead me in my day-to-day decisions. Loving the Lord your God, with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength, and to loving your neighbor as yourself had started to resonate in my mind, heart, and soul.

I thought I had believed in Jesus Christ all of my life, but had I really known Him? Definitely not in the relational manner in which God intended. My problem consisted of a gap, a chasm in the way God wanted me to live my life, and the way I was living my life.

My problem became very clear: I had not really known Jesus Christ in the way God intended for me to know Him. Instead, I had chosen to live in my old self, and thus in sin. As a result, the Holy Spirit had been grieved and quenched (Ephesians 4:30, 1 Thessalonians 5:19); I did not allow Him to lead. In my current circumstances, I was unable to experience the freedom and power of Jesus Christ in my life.

I asked myself these questions: Was I alone? Are others experiencing the same problem? I had a strong feeling numerous fellow Christians felt the same way I did. We, as Christians, are not living in the freedom and power of Jesus Christ.

This has to change.

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

As a believer, I saw the problems Christians faced, the problems I had personally faced, as well as the challenges that existed in our lives because of our human state. Yet, the fact remained: Even though we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior, it does