Jordan Ames (00:00)
When we move in the direction that God wants us to go, one thing is certain: the enemy will attack. It's imminent. You will face opposition. In this video, I'm going to explain what to do when you are the opposition, how to respond, how to grow through that, and how to prevent it.
Jordan Ames (00:27)
A few Sundays ago, I was the opposition.
Jordan Ames (00:30)
I decided to stand up in church and share with the congregation a a recent diagnosis that friends of ours had experienced, that they're still walking through that. And I wanted to to challenge the church to just be more urgent about praying, praying and fasting.
Jordan Ames (00:54)
My heart was right, my intentions were good.
Jordan Ames (00:57)
But the way I went about doing that and the words I said were flat out wrong. Some of them were good, but I think I took it a little too far. I know I took it a little too far. And thankfully the church leadership
Jordan Ames (01:13)
addressed that, confronted me about it, and I was able to walk through that and understand that and then seek apologies, seek reconciliation.
Jordan Ames (01:23)
So I wanna use that own failure of mine, that mistake of mine to walk through how we can prevent that from happening, how we can grow through that.
Jordan Ames (01:35)
And how to respond in those types of situations.
Jordan Ames (01:38)
So I'll share the the mistakes I made, aside from specifically what I said, what I did, the mistakes that I made leading up to that, that if I would have not made the mistakes, I could have prevented myself from failing as I did, and from saying things that were very much unbiblical, that were not true. And so
Jordan Ames (02:04)
Some of the mistakes I made was one, I didn't share my heart with others. I didn't share it with my wife. I didn't share it with the church leadership. I didn't let others know where my heart was and what I intended to do. I knew it would be uncomfortable to some people, and so I decided not to share even what was on my heart. I was okay with them being uncomfortable.
Jordan Ames (02:30)
But I didn't give anybody else the opportunity to give me some feedback to help me see different perspectives. I didn't explain to the leadership of the church my intentions and give them the opportunity to discern through what I intended to do. Okay, that's huge because.
Jordan Ames (02:49)
If I would have if I would have gone to them and shared with them my intentions, that would have been an act of being submissive to their leadership, which is the right way to treat them. They are appointed in those positions. God appointed them in those positions to lead the church. They deserve that they they trust people like me to not do what I did. So
Jordan Ames (03:18)
They deserve to understand what people want to do. they are accountable to God for the runnings and administration of that church.
Jordan Ames (03:28)
And I also didn't anticipate friction points or where I would face the resistance that I faced.
Jordan Ames (03:36)
Understanding where there may be friction or resistance doesn't mean you avoid those points.
Jordan Ames (03:43)
But but understanding where there's friction and resistance will drive us to be more intentional with thinking through how to handle it.
Jordan Ames (03:52)
A good heart with good intentions does not equal good strategy and good execution. All right, I'm gonna say that again. A good heart and good intentions does not equal good strategy and good execution. And that's what I experienced. I had a good heart, I had good intentions, but because of those mistakes I just shared with you in where I lacked preparing for what I wanted to do.
Jordan Ames (04:21)
I failed, I didn't have a strategy, and I failed in the execution. In the military, we call this good initiative, bad judgment. And that was plain and simple what happened with me. I had a good initiative, but my judgment was poor. When our own actions distract and even in my case disrupt our true heart's desire and good intentions, we have failed.
Jordan Ames (04:49)
And we have to we have to look at it as failure.
Jordan Ames (04:52)
But praise God, failure is not final.
Jordan Ames (04:55)
See, even even within the church, there's many Christians that will make a mistake that will fail, and then they want to run away. They want to get away from who knows them. They just want to maybe go to a different church. They just want to get away from the situation. Well, that's not helping matters at all.
Jordan Ames (05:14)
So my heart is good, my intentions are also good, but I want to share a few things that I've done and I must continue to do since this is only a few weeks old. I must continue to do and commit to doing in the future. So that one, I don't make the same mistake again, and I step aside and allow God to be glorified in my life. Again, my heart was good.
Jordan Ames (05:43)
I was going in the direction I believe God was telling me to go. My intentions were good. But I stood in the way of him being able to be glorified through me because of the mistakes I made in execution. All right, so first, the first thing to do, and Jesus commands us to do this several times throughout the Gospels, but is to deny self. Jesus says if we are to follow him, we must deny self.
Jordan Ames (06:11)
Our tendency is to defend ourself. When I say self, that's our just think of your self-image. We each have two images. One is the self-image, the the very unique design that God gave us, and the other is God's image. So all of us are made in God's image, but then each of us have a very unique self-image. And that's a good thing. That's a great thing.
Jordan Ames (06:40)
God gave it to us. However, if we are to follow Him and use that self-image for His glory and really to have unlimited potential with that self-image, we must deny it and put God's image first. Think of it like this: you have two images, only one of them can be leading. So if we deny self,
Jordan Ames (07:09)
And we let God's image lead.
Jordan Ames (07:10)
And self is behind God's image, the potential we have is is unlimited.
Jordan Ames (07:16)
So we want to defend self, not deny self. Very naturally, that's what we wouldn't do. Our sinful nature, we want to defend it. I didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't my fault. Rather than design denying that nature and submitting to the fact that, maybe I was wrong.
Jordan Ames (07:37)
Why? Because we want our reputation to stay intact. We naturally feel like we must defend self.
Jordan Ames (07:45)
But that is a lie straight from hell.
Jordan Ames (07:47)
We must not defend self, we must deny self. I'm gonna explain this in the context of the situation.
Jordan Ames (07:55)
So in in my situation, shortly after the service, some of the leadership came to me and and shared with me that what I did was unbiblical and they explained it to me.
Jordan Ames (08:09)
And I'm and I'm thankful that they confronted me and gave me that perspective. But I was only able to receive that because I was willing to humble myself and accept what they were saying, accept their perspective.
Jordan Ames (08:24)
Another way to deny self is to accept any consequences that may come from your actions.
Jordan Ames (08:32)
I I put a wedge in some relationships because of what I said. I put the leadership of the church in a bad spot.
Jordan Ames (08:38)
I of course made myself look like a fool, but people were also concerned about my wife. So I put her in a bad spot.
Jordan Ames (08:46)
So I needed to accept whatever consequences come from that. The church needs to handle me in a certain situation, which they did. I completely accepted the consequences. It's completely right of them to to issue what they what they issued. Some consequences are natural, they're just right, like having some maybe weird looks or just having some tension. That's just going to be natural.
Jordan Ames (09:16)
Consequences. Some are deliberate, the church leadership gave me a deliberate consequence. And they were completely right in doing that. But to, but I needed to deny self in order to receive those quants consequences in a humble manner. Also, to seek forgiveness from someone, you have to deny self. You have to be humble enough to say, okay, yeah, I I messed up there. I did something wrong, and and I hurt you.
Jordan Ames (09:43)
Or I impacted, I affected your life in some way. I need to seek forgiveness. First, seek it from God. But then seek it from those your actions have affected. All right, so deny self. That is number one, the most important thing to do whenever you failed, whenever you were the opposition.
Jordan Ames (10:05)
Number two is to directly apologize.
Jordan Ames (10:08)
I apologize to those affected. Apologize to your team, whatever that looks like.
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Apologize to those you have influence over. Be truthful about where you are wrong and apologize.
Jordan Ames (10:20)
I've done that with the church leadership, the pastor, the board. I've done that with others in the church that I know were affected. I've also apologized specifically to my wife and children because it was not as their father, husband, as the leader of this home, it was an absolute failure to them.
Jordan Ames (10:40)
Trust is a fragile thing. You've probably heard that before. Trust is very fragile. But denying self and then directly apologizing to people is the first step to start rebuilding that trust. Nobody will trust someone who cannot admit their mistakes. You've probably, maybe you're thinking of somebody off the top of your head. You've probably been in those positions. You don't want to trust somebody.
Jordan Ames (11:06)
Who thinks they never make a mistake. And they might not actually think that, but if they're never going to apologize, if not if they're never going to acknowledge when they've made a mistake, it's as it's as good as saying that they think they never make a mistake. And you don't want you can't trust people like that.
Jordan Ames (11:25)
Number three, stay engaged. Do not isolate yourself because everyone knows what you did wrong. That's a natural tendency to want to do. Like I mentioned, people maybe have a failure within the church, and so they leave, they dart to another church. Or maybe they leave the church completely. do not isolate yourself. That's exactly what the enemy wants you to do. Stay engaged, stay engaged with the people that held you accountable.
Jordan Ames (11:55)
Stay engaged with the people that love you. Stay engaged with the people that can grow you.
Jordan Ames (12:00)
Becoming isolated, becoming a recluse, that's actually a selfish way to handle the situation. Because it's based on your own feelings of insecurity. So to stay engaged, we need to face those feelings. And I promise you, as you stay engaged, people will love you through it, and those feelings of insecurity will go away. You actually see the growth that has happened and even be more secured.
Jordan Ames (12:27)
Keep in mind everybody has a weakness. It's called being human. If people want to look down on you and continue to hold you your mistake over you, that's their problem, not yours.
Jordan Ames (12:41)
Being able to deny self, directly apologize, and stay engaged with that same community that knows you screwed up.
Jordan Ames (12:49)
Will give you freedom. It'll allow you to walk freely in those areas. And keep in mind, you already have the victory. Just because you messed up doesn't mean you lost anything. It just means you're growing. It means you face some conflict. Even though that was created on your own and it wasn't somebody else. Sometimes we we get a lot of opposition against us even when we did nothing wrong.
Jordan Ames (13:15)
But when we're the ones that d have done something wrong.
Jordan Ames (13:19)
We need to humble ourselves, recognize that we still have the victory, even in the midst of our failure. Don't forget that. Your identity is not in who you were whenever you failed. Your identity is in Christ. And you just had a moment, lapse in judgment. Again, you had good initiative, but bad judgment. Don't beat yourself down about it.
Jordan Ames (13:44)
And then lastly, prepare for the next attack. Although this whole video is about my own mistake, my own failure, I'm lying to myself. If I don't recognize that it was the enemy, it was spiritual warfare. I was going in the direction I believe God was leading me. And I didn't prepare that the enemy was going to.
Jordan Ames (14:10)
attack me in that way by the enemy was going to use me to kinda stand in my own
Jordan Ames (14:16)
If there was no enemy, all humans would be perfect. Right? The only reason why there was sin entered the world, why there was the fall of man, was because the enemy, the serpent, slide his way in, distracted Eve, lied to her, started manipulating her, and caused her to fall into sin. So if that enemy wasn't around, there would be no sin.
Jordan Ames (14:42)
So keep in mind that enemy is real. And don't beat yourself up whenever you fall in to the enemy's vices. Just recognize there's things that you must do. Denying self, humbling yourself, apologizing to those you may have hurt, staying engaged with the body of believers that teem to have people around you. We need to do these things so we can get back up on our feet, so to speak.
Jordan Ames (15:10)
So when it comes to preventing these situations, and I like to say preparing for contact with the enemy, I'm going to give you four ways to do that.
Jordan Ames (15:21)
And it spins off some of the things that I didn't do that I should have done. All right. So first, share your heart. Share your heart and intentions with someone or a group of people. Get their input and their thoughts on what is weighing on you.
Jordan Ames (15:37)
If you are married, certainly share them with your spouse.
Jordan Ames (15:40)
Second one is to seek confirmation and support from others, especially leadership. In my case, I should have sought that confirmation and support from the church leadership. And if after sharing my heart and intentions with them, they wanted to refine things, they maybe would not have me speak on that, I needed to honor them.
Jordan Ames (16:02)
I failed to step back and say, hey, I'd like to do this. What do you think? Ask your leadership, what do they think?
Jordan Ames (16:10)
Especially in in a situation where you're subordinate to that leadership.
Jordan Ames (16:15)
And they trusted me and I lost some of that trust when I spoke what was truly unbiblical.
Jordan Ames (16:22)
All right, number three, complete communicate clearly.
Jordan Ames (16:25)
Sharing your heart with others and seeking their support will help you to practice communicating clearly because they might have questions. They might want to revise things and you understand that, I didn't present that how I intended to. So it gives you an opportunity to clarify your communication before maybe it's something you're actually communicating. In my case, it it was a
Jordan Ames (16:52)
Standing up with microphone communicating. I know if I would have shared my heart and intentions with the leadership and and others whom who I knew may have been impacted or could have just given me some perspective, I I would have 100% communicated better truthfully, biblically, than than what I did.
Jordan Ames (17:19)
And then lastly, anticipate the resistance. Again, if we're going in the direction God is leading us, you will face opposition. You will face resistance. The enemy will attack. So we have to anticipate when he will, maybe how he will.
Jordan Ames (17:37)
I anticipated the resistance that people would be uncomfortable and I was okay with that.
Jordan Ames (17:42)
What I did not do was anticipate that I would be the opposition, that I would be my own resistance. I didn't anticipate that, and it led me to failing to do the things that could have prevented my failure.
Jordan Ames (17:59)
It led me to not sharing it with others, not communicating clearly, not sharing and seeking the confirmation and support from the church leadership.
Jordan Ames (18:10)
I want to share a simple process to you that in the military have gone over time and time and time again. It's a doctrinal, small, four-step process for how ground troops attack an enemy fortified position. It has the acronym RIGS. And military has a lot of great acronyms. RIGS, R-I-G-S.
Jordan Ames (18:35)
The R stands for recon the objective. Okay, that's basically all the mission analysis that we have to do. From the time we're back on a on a base and we're collecting information, we're collecting reconnaissance, we're we're organizing all this, we're starting to build a plan. The I is isolate the objective. So of course, we're we plan to do that, but once we get
Jordan Ames (19:02)
On our mission, once we are, pulling up in trucks or stepping off the helicopter and we're starting to get close to the objective, we have to have a plan and we have to make sure that we isolate our specific objective from potential enemy contact in and around it. So picture one building in the middle of a city, that's your objective. Well, chances are there's going to be enemy in buildings all around that.
Jordan Ames (19:31)
So in order to accomplish your objective, those all those other enemy, that's all distractions. That's not your mission. Your mission is that one building. But you got to deal with the enemy's attacks from outside that building. So to isolate that objective is to ensure you have an answer, you have a response for any enemy attack that might come from outside that objective.
Jordan Ames (19:58)
And then the G is gain a foothold. So you can do all the planning, you can do all the isolating the objective, you know, dealing with those other distractions. But if you never step into the objective, that's that gain of foothold. That's when we breach the door, we get a get an four people in the objective, and we gain a foothold there. Okay, once we do that.
Jordan Ames (20:27)
Then the the last one is SCs the objective. That's when we start to flood the objective.
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Start moving through, clear it quickly.
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And then within minutes the objective's ours. We strong point it. We can defend it. We do our do our thing and then we leave.
Jordan Ames (20:42)
So I want to now conceptualize that process into a little different acronym, hopefully one you can remember. But I think the same concept we can use in preparing for maybe a a big objective we might have, but also just a simple task, my intention to stand up and share with the church things I wanted to share. If I would have rolled through this process, I probably would have.
Jordan Ames (21:13)
Taking the steps to share with others, share my heart, share with the leadership, seek their support, seek confirmation, communicate more effectively. If I would have completed this process. So let me let me share with you. So rigs is the military process, and very similar, this is called let's go. Why is it let's go? Well
Jordan Ames (21:41)
I believe that when we when we're able to run through this process, it will allow us to take action, to get on the move, despite the enemy contact, the resistance we may face, and allow us to start moving, which I think is
Jordan Ames (21:57)
Is something that Christians need to do a better job of. We need to be more on the move, more urgent to go and make disciples, knowing that we're going to take enemy contact. So the first one, just like Riggs, it began with recon of the objective, this one is just simple learn. We need to learn. We need to study. We need to analyze. We need to be in a preparation mode, planning. We need to learn.
Jordan Ames (22:26)
And then the isolate the objective, the second step, we need to enlist support. So the L is learn, the E is enlist support. I failed to do that. I didn't share with others, I didn't seek support in that confirmation. And so I expose myself to the enemy attacks. Again, not realizing, not even thinking that that would come from myself.
Jordan Ames (22:54)
Number three, the gain the foothold. This is T. Take action. Okay, again, once once you've done the planning, once you've isolated that objective, you enlisted support from others around you, you need to take action. You still may fail in some things, but you're definitely not going to succeed if you don't start taking action. And you're not going to be obedient to the spirit.
Jordan Ames (23:23)
If you don't take steps forward.
Jordan Ames (23:24)
And then lastly, the S and the go is very simply seize the ground to the objective. So that's really the byproduct of doing the first three steps, but it's it's the momentum. So once we take action, we can learn. We can learn from what was successful, we can learn from where we failed. Just like I'm doing right now, I'm sharing with you where I failed. I've I've learned from it and I can apply that to future situations in life.
Jordan Ames (23:54)
But I have to keep taking steps. I have to stay engaged and not be isolated. If I isolate myself, I'm probably going to stop taking steps. But seizing the ground to the objective is all about continuing to take action, continuing to learn, continuing to enlist support, continuing to be successful and to fail, and exploit those times of success and learn from those failures.
Jordan Ames (24:20)
So remember that acronym, let's go. Learn and list support, take action, and then seize the ground to your objective.
Jordan Ames (24:31)
One of Red Letter Leadership's pillars is leadership is a daily effort. I've said this many times and I share it several times in the Red Letter Leadership book. See, when leaders are doing awesome, we don't like to think that leadership is a daily effort. Because that holds us accountable to continue our good leadership every day. So if I'm doing a great job at leadership, well, I would love to just
Jordan Ames (25:00)
Everybody knows I'm a good leader. The assumption is that I'm a good leader tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day. I don't need to prove myself anymore. I don't need to study anymore. I'm just a good leader. That's not true at all. Good leaders will eventually fail. They're human. They'll specifically fail if they're also seeking their growth.
Jordan Ames (25:24)
However, though, today I am very grateful that leadership is a daily effort. Because it means that I can get back up after I've fallen, after I've made these mistakes. Recognizing that leadership is a daily effort right now for me is an encouragement because I've just made a big mistake. But I know that doesn't, I that doesn't mark me as a person. It doesn't mark me as a leader.
Jordan Ames (25:51)
It's just an area I need to learn, I need to grow from and I need to continue on understanding.
Jordan Ames (25:57)
that I need to pursue being a student, a lifelong student of leadership.
Jordan Ames (26:02)
and not only sharing these lessons with you, but applying them to my life each and every day.
Jordan Ames (26:08)
So if you have messed up, please know it is not final. Humble yourself, deny self, lick your wounds, accept your consequences, and get back in the game.
Jordan Ames (26:20)
Someone is still waiting for you to lead them. They may need your leadership soon when they face a failure of their own. And because if you have walked the walk that you have traveled.
Jordan Ames (26:35)
you may be a better person to lead them through their failure.
Jordan Ames (26:41)
If you have recently failed at something, or even if it was a long time ago and it's continuing to weigh you down, I want you to listen to these encouraging words from Proverbs 14 9.
Jordan Ames (26:52)
Fools make fun of guilt, but the godly acknowledge it and seek reconciliation. The godly acknowledge it and seek reconciliation.
Jordan Ames (27:04)
Don't make light of your mistake or poke fun at guilt. Take it seriously, but also acknowledge and reconcile.
Jordan Ames (27:13)
I believe I've done that well in this specific situation. I hope this video has encouraged you. Don't wait to reconcile and start to prepare to prevent yourself from being your own opposition.
Jordan Ames (27:29)
Please tell me if this video has helped you. Leave a comment or even send me an email to Jordan at redletterleadership.com.
