The sunk cost bias appears when we’ve invested considerable time and effort into something that is not going well, but we simply can’t give it up. If we did, we’d feel like a failure. This often happens in churches when we keep a ministry alive when we need to kill it. Suggestion: What ministry or project is not working and draining your soul? If you could magically make it go away, how would you feel? If, as you imagine it gone, you feel a great weight off your shoulders, you may have succumbed to this bias. It may be time to kill that program or project.

Leaders would like to think that they lead in unbiased ways. However, that’s easier said than done. The fall of man affected every part of who we are, including our thinking. Brain biases abound. A Google search reveals almost 200 different biases. Among those 200, what brain biases poses the greatest threat to effective leadership? In this post I explain five and suggest an idea for each to counter its potential negative impact.
Scientists call these ‘brain’ biases cognitive biases, judgment errors that rise from our tendency to mentally jump to conclusions. Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize winner and author of the book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, calls them heuristics, mental shortcuts we use when we make decisions. Because our brain has limited energy, we can’t consciously ‘think’ before every decision.
Therefore, we intuitively make many decisions (over 40 percent of what we do is habit) that require limited mental resources and allocate our brain energy only to those that require our immediate attention. As a result, we sometimes don’t make the best decisions, which can impair our leadership.
Here are my top 5 brain biases and suggestions for responding to them.
The confirmation bias. This bias reflects our preference for those who agree with us. We subconsciously look for people and information to confirm our preexisting beliefs, actions, and attitudes. As a result we spotlight only the information that supports the decision we want to make and we tend to discard negative input that we need to see the full picture and make the wisest decision.
Suggestion: Do a pre-mortem on a planned ministry or initiative. Before you make the decision, gather your team and ask, “Let’s assume we did (such and such) and it gloriously failed. What would we say contributed to the failure?” Allow full and frank discussion.
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We enter into a new life by the Spirit, a new spiritual life, in which sin no longer reigns over us. Because our sins have been dealt with and our old man has been crucified with Christ, the barrier that existed between us and God has been removed and we now receive the gift of the Spirit. And by the power of the Spirit we are enabled to walk in newness of life.

In one sense, we rightly think of sanctification as a progressive work. As the 1689 LBCF states, this is the Spirit’s work of destroying “the whole body of sin” and strengthening “all saving graces, to the practice of all true holiness” (13.1). When we encounter hagios/hagiazo  (ἁγίος / ἁγιάζω) in NT usage, however, we also find a definitive aspect in the way the words are used.
We can also push a bit further by exploring how the New Testament describes what happens in conversion. There are several passages we could look at, but let us draw our attention to the one that is probably most familiar, Romans 6:1-14:
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Dead to Sin, Alive to God
Probably no passage is more instructive when it comes to definitive sanctification than this text. The constraints of this post will not allow me to give a full and detailed exposition of it, but here are the main lines of thought. Paul has just demonstrated in Romans 3:21-5:21 that the believer’s righteous standing and acceptance with God is not based on his own works but on the work of another on his behalf, even the redemptive work of Christ. He has been setting forth the glorious doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. But now in Romans 6:1, he anticipates an objection to this doctrine and a potential abuse of it by wicked men: “But Paul, if, as you say, sinners as sinners are justified by grace alone through faith alone, why not just keep on living in sin that grace may abound? It doesn’t matter how we live.” This is the error and the objection Paul is anticipating as he begins this chapter.
He writes in verse 1, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Having anticipated the objection, he then answers the objection: “Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” We have an aorist in the indicative mood, which normally points to a past time event. There was a specific point in the past when this death occurred.
Paul next goes on to give an extended explanation in vv. 3-10. He explains that the believer died to sin in the death of the Lord Jesus. We who are in Christ are united to Him in His death to sin, and we are also raised with Him in His resurrection to live a new life. This is symbolized by our baptism.
When did this happen? In one sense, we died with Christ when He died. Jesus was dying as our substitute and representative, even before we existed. In fact, we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, (Eph. 1:4). But we do not actually die with Him in our legal position and standing before God until our conversion. Our old man was crucified with Him as a completed past action in that very moment that we were joined to Him by faith.
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James’ problem with the rich is not their money but their master. In serving money they oppressed the poor, ran roughshod over the helpless, and exploited whomever they could for their own gain. Rejecting the model of the Master, they sought to be served rather than to serve. 

FAITH AT WORK: Devotions through the book of James

You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. (James 5:5, ESV)
My guess is that we won’t find James 5:1 in one of those verse-a-day packets: “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you” (James 5:1). Yet that verse and the contrast it presents captures the tension we face each and every day as disciples of Jesus Christ, seeking of first importance the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Earlier in his letter, James discourages believers from discrimination on the basis of station. He says they should not give preference in the assembly to a man wearing fine clothes over someone sporting shabby clothing. Beyond the level playing field of all being mired in the same sin and all being in need of the same grace, James levels particular criticism of the rich. “Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court?” (James 2:6)
Now as he winds down his letter, James addresses the rich themselves. “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days” (James 5:1–3).
What is James’ problem with those who have wealth?
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