0181, Happy Managers 1 of 2
Happy Managers 1 of 2
#0181 Study Given by W. D. Frazee—September 15, 1978
My subject this evening is “Happy managers.” Happy managers. Everybody here is a manager. Some of you didn’t know it, but you will pretty soon. Some of you already found it out, but are you all happy? Happy managers, that’s our subject.
The more I study life, the more I see that things work best when they work the way they were made to work. An automobile works when it gets gasoline and air to the carburetor. It takes both, doesn't it? Sometimes we forget the air because we have to buy the gas, but the air is quite as important as the gas, right?
People, they’re made to run on food and air. Like the automobile, they have to have air. Our fuel comes from food. It’s strange how many things are being put into the human system today that either aren’t foods at all, or are very poor foods. And people cripple along, and hobble along, and bungle along when they could be having real success, the best of health and happiness. I repeat, things work best when they work the way they were made to work.
We call these facts the laws of nature. A law of nature is something that men have observed happens again and again in a certain way—certain causes produce certain results. The laws of nature, we speak of them as.
The word ‘law’ naturally brings to a reasonable mind the thought, "Well, who is the lawgiver?” The answer, of course, is the Creator. As the scripture says, there is one lawgiver, the same One that made the Ten Commandments and wrote them on the stone; wrote the laws of astronomy in the stars, the laws of botany in the flowers, the laws of physiology in the human body.
In Proverbs 29:18, we read the wonderful truth. I’m going to wait a minute while you turn to it; I want you to see it. What word from our subject do you find in this text? Happy. Does it tell us who’s happy? Who is it?
“…he that keeps the law, happy is he” Proverbs 29:18.
To keep the laws of physiology brings physical happiness; we call that health. To keep the laws of the mind brings mental health: contentment, joy. And to keep the moral law of God puts us in harmony with the great Creator, Redeemer, and that's real happiness.
“…he that keeps the law, happy is he” Proverbs 29:18.
You see, God had a certain plan in mind in making us. As we’ve already agreed, things work best when they work the way they were meant to work. Let’s go
over to the last book of the Bible, Revelation 4:11, and see what people were made for. We can find out what people were made for and see how they were made to work. They work best when things are done according to plan and pattern.
“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created” Revelation 4:11.
Now some people might think this is selfish but it isn’t; it’s supremely unselfish as we shall see. But my point is this: Selfish or unselfish, that's why God made us. That’s what He made us for, is for His pleasure, and we work best when that objective is reached. That’s success. God made us, and He made us for His pleasure.
So you and I, therefore, can never find true pleasure in displeasing Him. There’s no way in this universe to displease God and still obtain lasting, true pleasure and satisfaction. Impossible. It won’t work.
What pleases Him? Well, I’ll tell you what pleases Him, friends. When I know that He made me, and when I understand what He made me for, and when I choose that way, or accomplish what He made me for, and when I choose it because I’m convinced that He knows best, and that He loves me enough to give me what’s best, that’s what makes Him happy. That’s what He gets His pleasure out of.
Having given men the power of choice, that's why He gave man the power of choice. God wanted to get the supreme satisfaction that the Creator might receive from His creature; the supreme satisfaction comes when the Creator gives a creature the power of choice, and that creature chooses to use that power of choice to agree with the Creator. That’s the supreme satisfaction.
Tell me, you parents, doesn't it thrill your heart when your growing boy and developing girl use their growing opportunity to choose in a way that agrees with you and your plans and your desires? Can there be any greater disappointment that can come to a father’s heart, or a mother’s soul, when for the growing young person to use that choice to defeat the parent’s desire? No greater disappointment.
This, of course, is a reflection of God and His attitude. I repeat, the thing that makes God happy is when I recognize what He made me for, and I choose to accept His plan. And the reason that I choose it is not that I have to choose it, but that seeing the various ways open before me, I recognize that He knows best, what is best for me, and that He loves me enough to plan that, and I recognize that and choose it. That makes Him supremely happy.
So you see, there's nothing selfish about His making me for His pleasure. His pleasure is my good, my best—that’s what makes Him happy.
How does He plan things? He has planned things in this way: He has deliberately arranged things so that which is of infinite value to Him is turned over to me, not to own, but to manage. So fully has He turned it over to me, that I can spoil everything, ruin everything if I choose. Would you do that with somebody? Would
you make something beyond value, beyond computation, of infinite value and then turn it over to somebody knowing that they had the power to ruin it if they chose? That’s what God has done, friends.
Oh, what a risk He took, but this is because He loves us. I want to repeat it. So fully has God turned something over to me that I can spoil everything, ruin everything if I choose.
You know what it is of infinite value that He turned over to me, don’t you? It’s me. That’s it. Or did you know I was worth that much? You may not have found it out, but He knows it, and He’s so glad when I know it. So He says, “I’m going to turn you over to yourself to manage. I’m not surrendering my ownership; you still belong to me, I made you, and I bought you with My blood. But I’m putting you in your hands to manage.” Thank God I don’t have to ruin everything. I don’t have to ruin anything.
As the manager, I have the privilege of consulting the Owner, and the privilege of following His directions. More than directions, He furnishes power— power to carry out the directions. Isn’t that tremendous? So the wisdom to know what to do, and the power to accomplish it, are furnished by the Owner.
And His is not an absentee ownership; He lives with me. He lives in me, but not in a way to destroy or to bypass my personality, my choice. He doesn’t take over like the Devil does a spirit medium. No, no. Nothing remotely like that. Some people’s idea of the Christian life is being, in their imagination you understand, so possessed by the Spirit of God, that automatically they know and do everything they ought to know and do. God is not interested in that program. The Devil is. That’s his aim.
But God has made a person, an individual, like no one else in this universe— a reflection of one facet of His infinite character. And He has given the power of choice to attain that, to carry out God’s plan, or to spoil the whole thing, to wreck it, to ruin it one way or the other. No. I repeat: His purpose is not to bypass or destroy my personality. He wants me to be me, but the me He has planned, not the wreck of it, spoiled and ruined. Oh, no. He wants me to be the me that He planned before the foundation of the world. That’s something wonderful, friend.
He gives me many opportunities to recognize His ownership and the fact that I'm manager rather than owner. For example, here is this matter of money. You know most managers have to do with money, don't they? So money is a part of my management. But never am I to forget that I am only the manager and not the owner. Turn over to the book of Haggai, the second chapter. What word do you find repeated twice here? Mine. Who’s talking? The Lord of hosts.
“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the LORD of hosts” Haggai 2:8.
Well, if the silver is His, and the gold is His, surely the greenbacks are His too, aren’t they? Not only money, but all that money can buy, all material things are included. It’s all His. And certain portions of these material blessings, He allows to
come into my hands, under my supervision. And He allows me the power of choice, which means that I can spend it all any way I choose to. He lets me decide how to spend it, every dollar of it. I can ruin myself if I choose, just with money. Millions are doing it, aren’t they? But I don’t have to ruin things, if I’ll just remember that I’m what? Manager—not an owner. And that will lead me to look to Him for direction as to how He wants His money, His property, His material blessings used and spent, or saved as the case may be.
Someone was telling me about a London firm several years ago that had an agent in the city of New Orleans. New Orleans at that time was one of the leading cotton markets in the world. From time to time, they would have this agent buy or sell cotton on the New Orleans market. Well, when the owners of the firm were watching the trend, when cotton was high, they would sell, when it was low, they would buy. So, they would cable this man, “Buy so many bales of cotton” at such a figure. “Sell so many bales of cotton” at another time, at such a figure.
One day he got a cable from the London owners, it said, “Sell so many bales of cotton” at such a figure. But he thought he was acquainted with the market, and he felt that it was on the rise, and he felt that if he would only keep that cotton for a few days, he could sell it at a good increase. So it proved and he sent them the returns from it with a report of what had happened. Do you know what they did? They sent him back the profit, the difference between the figure they had told him to sell it for, and the figure he did sell it for and they said, “That’s not our money, that’s your money. But we need a man in New Orleans that will sell when we say 'sell,' and will buy when we say, 'buy,' because next time it may not work out this way.”
He had forgotten that he wasn’t the owner. He had extended the opportunity to choose beyond what the owners contemplated. Millions of people are doing that today with God. They're taking God's money and spending it for anything and everything except what the Owner intended. Wonder of wonders, the Owner is letting them do it.
The gambling places of Reno and Las Vegas are crowded with multitudes of people throwing away millions of dollars, God’s money. The drinking places of 10,000 taverns, and nightclubs, are filled with people throwing away money, God’s money, in getting poison to pour down their throats; disorder their physiology, their thinking processes, and we might go on with the long, sordid picture. Isn’t it a pity?
But thank God, friends, I don’t have to go that way, do you? No. I can be God’s manager. He has given me a sign, a token, that if I will accept it, recognizes God as the owner of all I possess and myself as the manager. That’s the system of tithes and offerings. The tithe, 10 percent my owner says, that I, as His manager, am to take 10 percent of all increase coming under my management and devote it to a certain purpose—the support of the ministry in the organized church, the preaching of the Gospel. And if I recognize that He’s the owner and I’m the manager, what will I do? Well, I just carry that out all the time. When I get my wages or when I get my income from other sources, whatever it may be, thank God I recognize that He is the Owner, and I am the manager. And as I put the tithe where He told me to put it, and did He tell me where to put it? Malachi 3:10:
“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse…
That’s the treasury of God’s church.
“…that there may be meat…”
That is food.
“…in mine house” Malachi 3:10.
The spiritual food in the house of God is made possible through the system of tithes and offerings. And since God is the Owner and I'm His manager, I respect the fact that not only has He specified the tithe but also offering.
Here He has not specified a certain percentage in the same way that He has the tithe. He has left more leeway, more flexibility, more opportunity for what? Some people think that's an opportunity for them to exercise their wishes. Certainly, it is an opportunity for them to exercise their choice—they can choose not to give anything, tithe or offering. But what God really intends is that leeway that flexibility shall draw me into still closer fellowship with him as I seek Him in prayer and study to find out what He wants me to do.
How much to devote to offerings, where to give, what to put in the Sabbath School, how to support the Harvest Ingathering work, how to support the local church, how to help the poor, how to help some new mission that’s trying to get started, and so on and on. The purpose is that God and I may have a close fellowship. Do you see?
But that leads on into all the rest of the money. It isn’t that after I’ve paid my tithe, I’m to treat the rest as if I were owner. It isn’t that God owns 10 percent, and I own 90 percent. God owns 100 percent. He’s made me the manager. And if I recognize His ownership, then I’m looking to Him all the way through. I'm His agent; I'm His disbursing agent. No matter how much I pay my tithe, and no matter how much I give an offering, anything that’s left is still Whose? It’s still God’s. I haven’t a nickel to fritter away. I haven’t one nickel to waste.
Thank God, if I know He's the Owner, that He made me and loves me, I don't want to waste one nickel of His money, what do you say?
What a joy it is to be a steward for God, a manager for God. You see what a great blessing this is to me when I get into what people call a “tight place.” Were you ever in a tight place financially? Well, if you’re the owner of what you had, all you have to meet your problem with is what you own, and that might not be very much. But if I'm only God's agent, and He's the Owner, He has a great deal more resources than appear.
So it is written:
“…my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:19.
That’s a good agent’s instructions, a good manager’s promises—promises for managers.
“…my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:19.
Oh, brothers and sisters, the more I enter into this, the more joy I get in thinking of anything that’s in my hands or that I can get my hands on, it’s not mine; I’m just a junior partner in the firm. He’s the Owner, and I’m the manager, and it works fine.
And so it is written that if we surrender our lives to His ordering, our souls to His keeping, we can never be placed in a position for which God has not made provision. It’s utterly impossible. And the people that do know their God, they’ll know these things that we’re studying tonight are strong and [inaudible words].
And listen, when you hear some wonderful story of how God has worked a miracle to supply somebody's need, don't suppose that if you had enough faith, something like that would happen to you tomorrow. It’ll happen to you tomorrow if you need it tomorrow. But don't let it be your aim to have some spectacular experience, some thrilling story to tell. Let it be your purpose to simply be a good manager for your Owner.
He may be satisfied for the moment for you to have what are called commonplace experiences. When Jesus, the Son of the infinite God came down to this world, He had what would be called commonplace experiences for 30 years; then He had what would rate as miraculous for three years, didn’t He? He sent 30 years getting ready for three. And God may keep you at commonplace things to get you ready for miraculous experiences.
But remember, Jesus was just as much under His Father’s direction, just as much in partnership with God when He was at the carpenter’s bench and in the home at Nazareth, as He was when He walked on the waves of Galilee or fed the multitude or raised the dead, wasn’t He? We must never rate nearness to God by a spectacular experience. Even the Devil can work spectacular things, can’t he?
So let us not cultivate a taste for the unusual. Let us cultivate a taste for fidelity in the commonplace, humdrum, useful things of life, what do you say? But in it all, remember, I am what? A manager, not an owner.
There’s something else that He’s given me to manage, and that’s time. Most managers deal with time, don’t they? And God has given me time to manage. All the time is His, as all the money is His. But note the difference: With money, some people have far more money than other people do. But when it comes to time, you have as much time as anybody in this world has.
God considers this, His time, so precious that He gives it to you just a minute at a time. A minute at a time. And as He’s made me His manager of time, I can spoil everything, ruin everything by using my time in a wrong way. Do you know all I
have to do to ruin it? Just try to please myself instead of pleasing Him; just think that I’m the owner, that I can do my own thing, instead of turning to Him and saying, “Lord, you made me, and You gave me life, and time is the stuff that life is made of. Oh, Lord, my life is Yours, my time is Yours, and as You give it to me a moment at a time, give me with the time, the wisdom to manage it in good shape.
As He has given me the tithe as the sign of His ownership and my management of material things, so He has given me what as the sign of His ownership of time?
[Audience response] The Sabbath.
The Sabbath. Will you repeat with me that Fourth Commandment? Together:
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shall not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” Exodus 20:8–11.
Note that this Sabbath commandment deals with how much of our time? All of it. All of it. Don’t miss the import of it. God doesn’t say, “Give me 1/7 and do as you please the rest of the time.” God doesn’t deal with us as if we own the time. We don’t. The time is His, but He turns it over to us for management and lets us use it any way we choose.
I don’t have to keep the Sabbath; I can desecrate it. God pity me if I do. I don’t have to work the six days; I can lazy around and let other people carry the burden. But if I recognize that my time is His, and I’m just His agent, His manager, I’ll say, “Lord, it’s all Yours, now teach me how to carry our Your plan, Your intentions.” And He says, “Well, first day, second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day, work. Work these different things that I’ve given you to do: make your living, take care of the temporal material things that need taken care of.”
And then, when the seventh day comes, the same One who has told me to work those first six days says now what? Rest and worship, minister to those of the sick who must have attention that day, worship in My house. He’s giving me directions as to how to spend that time—with nature, with the study of His Word, with my family, in communion, in fellowship. He’s put it all out there in literally a thousand details. Remember, things work best when they work the way they were made to work.
“…he that keeps the law, happy is he” Proverbs 29:18.
But basic to it all is this simple but stupendous fact: He is the Owner of it all, including me. I am His manager. I’m carrying out His plan, and beautiful plans they are, aren’t they? Thank God for it.
Then most wonderful of all, He has given me the stewardship of love. As all material things come from Him, as all time is of His creation, so “love is of God” (1 John 4:7). “Love is of God.” Will you repeat those words with me? “Love is of God.”
Most wonderful of all, I repeat, He shares His love with me. This is most precious. It’s all His. I can’t originate it. I can’t make other people love me. I can’t make myself love other people. Love is the gift of God.
But just as I can take money and make a fool of myself, just as I can take time and ruin everything in my life, so I can take love, this precious gift of God, and use it, misuse it, and abuse it in such a way as to bring more sorrow and pain than in any other way. All I have to do is think that I’m the owner, that I’m the one that’s calling the shots. I’m the one that’s giving the signal. I’m the one that’s making the decision as to who I will love, how I will love, and when I will love.
Immediate as I do that, I’ve gotten things clear out of order, and I’m riding for trouble, headed for disappointment. And no one can make failures on these points without involving others in that failure, my friends.
Oh, what a pity that this most precious gift of God to men should be so used, so misused, so abused as to bring the most disappointment, the greatest pain. Why not come back to the simple fact, the stupendous fact, that God is the Owner and we are managers.
Thank God, I don’t have to spoil things. I don’t have to ruin things. God is glad to direct me, perfectly willing to direct me, in bestowing my love according to His plan to whom He chooses, in the way that He chooses, and when He chooses. For to everything there is a time and a purpose, the wise man says. And he includes in that wonderful list of things for each of which there is a time, a time to love. A time to love.
“Oh,” somebody says, “I think any time’s a time to love.”
Well, read what the Bible says. The trouble is that many people are substituting their judgment for the Word of the living God. They’re substituting their ideas for the wisdom of the Creator of the universe.
Love is like an electric current, friends. It accomplishes many things, provided it’s channeled in the right way to the right place. But don’t forget that people get electrocuted with the same electricity that does a lot of useful things if it’s channeled rightly. Am I correct? And love is the electric current of the soul.
Thank God, I don’t have to join in a demonstration of the peril, the suffering, the disaster that comes from the misuse of love. If I’m willing, the same God that has directed in the use of the money He puts in my hand, and time He gives me, that
same God is abundantly able and abundantly willing to guide me in love. And there’s a divine order in all this, friends. As with money, as with time, so with love.
The place to begin is with God. The First Commandment is not to love your neighbor, certainly not to love yourself. But the first and greatest commandment is what? “…thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength…” Matthew 12:30.
All for God? Well, what’s left for me? Nothing. What’s left for others? Nothing. Nothing.
Oh well, I don't know how to do that.
Ah, my friend, to recognize God’s ownership, to lay down not 10 percent of our money, but all of it on God’s altar. And forever after, spend it only as He directs in a way to please Him. Do the same with the time; to do the same with our love. This is the joy of Christian fellowship. This is to know the real meaning of life. This means that the only use we make of money is with His ownership in mind. That the only use we make of time is with His ownership in mind. The only bestowal of love that we enter into in a smaller circle or in a larger circle is at His directions, according to His commands, in harmony with His will. This, I repeat, is to know the true joy of life.
“…he that keeps the law, happy is he” Proverbs 29:18.
Will you repeat it with me?
“…he that keeps the law, happy is he” Proverbs 29:18.
Jesus and His Father, as They talked this over in the counsels of Heaven, thought that all this was so important that it was worth risking a terrible ransom price in case man should fail in using this power of choice. And when Adam and Eve fell, at once, in harmony with the prearranged plan, Jesus stepped into the gap. He became the Redeemer, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). And thank God, that Lamb who put His life down, there 6,000 years ago, and carried it out in a full sacrifice 2,000 years ago, is still involved in this wonderful plan of redemption.
There at the mercy seat tonight, He stands with uplifted hands, pointing to the wounds of Calvary, interposing His life between us and the wrath of a broken law. He is in Himself the way back to harmony with law. We can never get back without Him. It was never intended that we find our way back without Him. He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
But He came, my friend—and don’t miss this—not to let us in on some weird or wonderful scheme to pay off our penalty while we go on recognizing God no more as Owner, but looking to ourselves as owners. Jesus did not come to accomplish that. His goal is to bring us back to harmony with God and His law.
He pays through His precious blood the price of our transgression. And through that same precious blood, He draws us near to God in harmony with Him, and places in our hands the emblems of intercession. He puts into our hands the censor of supplication, and we share with Him in this longing desire to meet the mind of God. May we bow our heads?
Precious Lord, we’re sorry that we have ever chosen our own way and left Thee standing, waiting, weeping, while we find out how little the far country has of contentment and true satisfaction.
Tonight, our Lord, we choose to acknowledge Thine ownership. We choose to believe that the hand that made the world, the hand that was nailed to the cross for us, is abundantly able to lift us up and hold us up, and keep us from falling. And we choose to place our little hands in that great hand that we may walk with Thee the path of true success and eternal joy. We thank Thee in His name, amen.
[Testimony service]
[After a young man gave his personal testimony about his blessing being at Wildwood and he ended saying,]
"It's truly a blessing, and it's really nice having nothing.”
[There is mild audience laughter, then Elder Frazee says,]
"I want to ask this man something: Would it be possible for a person to carry enough gasoline to take him clear across the country? It could be done, couldn’t it? Yes. But most people find that it’s more efficient to get enough to carry them a few hundred miles and then do what? Of course, that depends on whether you think there’s a service station down the road, doesn’t it? As my Heavenly Father, when He sends me off, guaranteed that there will be a service station wherever I need it. Thank God.”
[Recording ended in progress]
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