Leaderhip Training

At the beginning of the year, God challenged our small group of men to seek Him through daily Bible reading.

• Challenged us to blog for accountability
• Challenged us to attend Saturday morning breakfast @ 6:00am to filter the men from the boys
• We made a conscious choice not to become a ladies tea party
• Something must have resonated with your soul to become part of our group

Satan knows that a group of men daily seeking God is a huge threat to his world. Satan has been attacking on every front:

• Health
• Marriage
• Resentment
• Selfishness
• Unforgiveness

We seek the keys to the kingdom:

• Spiritual gifts (discernment / wisdom / healing / casting out deamons)
• Wealth and provision

God has freely given out the keys before, but his chosen men have failed every time.

• Saul -Failed to follow God wholeheartedly by killing all of the Amalekites.
  
• David - Committed adultery with Bathsheeba and had her husband murdered.
  
• Solomon - Was seduced by the pagan gods of his wives, and he failed to worship God wholeheartedly.

God has decided that we must be trained prior being given the keys to the kingdom:

• We must learn to hear His voice. (John 10:27 "My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me")
• Commit to daily seek / walk with Him
• Must demonstrate obedience

The Word is Living:

• Simply attending church or a small group is being force fed.
• You can read the entire Bible without discernment and obtain nothing
  
• The Holy Spirit makes the Word come alive
• God has a Rhema word (specific word) for us each day
• It is my job to find that word and research it
• By seeking Him first thing in the morning, I trust God to make the rest of my day more efficient (Tithing of my time)

Surrounded by Counsel:

• Advocate - A peer with the ability to speak into your life. Someone that loves you enough to tell you when you are messing up. We need these advocates for accountability.
  
• Discipleship - We need a mentor to disciple us, and we must disciple others. (Matthew 28:19 "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.")

Closing Questions:

• What is stopping you from daily seeking God by reading His word?
• Are you man enough to admit that your reason is an excuse?
• Who is your advocate? Who loves you enough to tell you the trust?
• Who is discipling you?
• Who are you discipling?
  

Total Submission

Proverbs 1:25-33
"Since you laugh at my counsel
and make a joke of my advice,
How can I take you seriously?
I'll turn the tables and joke about your troubles!
What if the roof falls in,
and your whole life goes to pieces?
What if catastrophe strikes and there's nothing
to show for your life but rubble and ashes?
You'll need me then. You'll call for me, but don't expect an answer.
No matter how hard you look, you won't find me.

"Because you hated Knowledge
and had nothing to do with the Fear-of-God,
Because you wouldn't take my advice
and brushed aside all my offers to train you,
Well, you've made your bed—now lie in it;
you wanted your own way—now, how do you like it?
Don't you see what happens, you simpletons, you idiots?
Carelessness kills; complacency is murder.
First pay attention to me, and then relax.
Now you can take it easy—you're in good hands."

If I choose to only submit portions of my life to God, how can I expect Him to bless my entire life? What must I do to find God's blessing? The first step is absolute submission.

Proverbs 1:7
Start with God—the first step in learning is bowing down to God;
only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.

The God of the universe is not bound by physics, space, or time. He knows every strand of DNA of every creature that has ever lived or will ever live. He orchestrates slow people on Yelm Highway to keep me out of accidents, and he pushes every breath of air into my lungs.

Is there any way imaginable that I could do a better job managing my life than God? When I fully understand how magnificent God is and how insignificant I am, there really is no choice but total submission to His will and His ways.

How can I hear from Him when His Word is closed? Total submission starts with daily Bible reading.

"And I'm going to keep that celebration going because I know how it's going to turn out. Through your faithful prayers and the generous response of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, everything he wants to do in and through me will be done. I can hardly wait to continue on my course. I don't expect to be embarrassed in the least. On the contrary, everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They didn't shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I'm Christ's messenger; dead, I'm his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can't lose." Philippians 1:20-21 MSG

When Paul wrote this he was in jail for preaching the gospel. We don't have to go to jail to "suffer for Christ". Sometimes our "jail" is something like unforgiveness, pain, or for us...bankruptcy. I decided in the beginning of this not to hide it or try to keep it a secret. I have felt like we are a proverbial billboard for our faith...no matter WHAT is happening, good and bad. "We will not be embarrassed! On the contrary, everything happening to us only serves to make Christ more accurately known." I love that what I felt was the right thing to do is actually backed up in scripture! Thank you Lord for your love letter to us!

Entitled Living

God is desperately seeking men that will simply obey Him and walk with Him daily. Several times in the Bible, God has made the following promise to men that He has raised up as leaders:

1 Kings 9:4-5
As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, You shall never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.

Solomon was given incredible wisdom and an immense fortune, but it was not enough. Sin crept in and Solomon became entitled. Once He became self reliant, He no longer needed to daily walk with God.

1 Kings 11:1-4
King Solomon was obsessed with women. Pharaoh's daughter was only the first of the many foreign women he loved—Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite. He took them from the surrounding pagan nations of which God had clearly warned Israel, "You must not marry them; they'll seduce you into infatuations with their gods." Solomon fell in love with them anyway, refusing to give them up. He had seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines—a thousand women in all! And they did seduce him away from God. As Solomon grew older, his wives beguiled him with their alien gods and he became unfaithful—he didn't stay true to his God as his father David had done.

Men have demonstrated through our failures that we are irresponsible with the keys to the kingdom. He can not give us wealth and influence without intense training.

I believe that I am going through an intense training period prior to being raised up a a leader in the kingdom. He is training me to walk with Him daily, to read His word, to hear His voice, and to obey unconditionally.

Thank you Jesus for the training. Please don't give me the keys until I am ready.

Measured Righteousness

Romans 1:16-17
It's news I'm most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God's powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else! God's way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: "The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives." (The righteous will live by faith.)

Can I measure my righteousness by the amount of faith I must muster to make it through the day? I believe that God uses situations that require daily faith living to develop righteousness. Thank you Jesus for the daily cleansing.

The Manna Fairy's biggest delivery yet!

We recieved the most amazing gift from the Lord tonight... A CAR!!!! God sent His angels (our dearest friends) to bless us with an awesome car...free and clear...they even covered the insurance for the next 2 months! They put a little sign on it that said "MANNA"... I'd say THAT manna fairy's wings got tired...THANK YOU JESUS!!! For Amazing friends and a mighty GOD!

Unexpected Gifts

2 Thessalonians 3:3
But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.

We lost our F-350 trucks to the bank about a month ago, and we have been driving a friend's truck nicknamed "The Humbler." We decided to learn from the mistakes of the Israelites, and we have been thankful for the reliable transportation. The only problem has been our inability to fit our family and groceries in the vehicle at the same time.


Tonight God blessed us with a very nice Mana Oldsmobile, and we are so thankful.


We have given cars away, and now we have received one. There is nothing more fun than giving and receiving unexpected gifts. May God bless our friends for their obedience with the ability to live and give far beyond their means.

Real Men

1 Kings 2:2-4
Be strong; show what you're made of! Do what God tells you. Walk in the paths he shows you: Follow the life-map absolutely, keep an eye out for the signposts, his course for life set out in the revelation to Moses; then you'll get on well in whatever you do and wherever you go. Then God will confirm what he promised me when he said, 'If your sons watch their step, staying true to me heart and soul, you'll always have a successor on Israel's throne.'

• Real Men know that the keys to the Kingdom are not given away easily
• Real Men are prepared to go through trials and to be trained for leadership
• Real Men understand that taking your life back into your own hands is a sin
• Real Men recognize that success is dependent on obedience to God
• Real Men trust in God's promises

Are you a Real Man?

Obedience in Tithing

Everything has settled down this week, and I needed to tithe on the work that we had been doing lately. The tithe check was for $250 which was difficult to write considering our circumstances, but we both knew that it was the right thing to do. As I dropped the check in the bucket, I prayed that God would provide resources and continue to take care of us.

I was reminded of Matthew 6:25-27
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

God promised food on the table, but He did not promise to pay off my mistakes.

After the service, an usher handed me an anonymous note which read:
"Thank only God. He told me to get this for you about a month ago. Sorry it took so long. I wish I could give more - though I'm sure God will keep the blessings coming! Love You!"

Enclosed was a $50 bill. God is so good, and he delivered some provision within minutes of depositing the tithe check. I want to thank the anonymous donor for their obedience, and this way God gets all the glory. I know the rewards that come with obedience, and I look forward to the day when God can use us to bless others again financially.

Pride is the Problem

1 Chronicles 28:9-10
"And you, Solomon my son, get to know well your father's God; serve him with a whole heart and eager mind, for God examines every heart and sees through every motive. If you seek him, he'll make sure you find him, but if you abandon him, he'll leave you for good. Look sharp now! God has chosen you to build his holy house. Be brave, determined! And do it!"

God has chosen some of us to enter His Special Forces and build His kingdom, but He can not stand for a single ounce of pride in our lives.

Barn sour horses decide to go back to the barn on their own when they are tired of working. The owner must go get the horse and put it back to work in order to train the horse that the work is not done until the master is satisfied. Once the horse has been trained, it gains the trust of the owner.

Each time I let pride creep back into my life, I start to become self sufficient. God must go get me and put me back to work until the pride is once again stripped out of my life. God can not use me to build His kingdom until I have been trained and gain His trust.

Proverbs 16:18-19
First pride, then the crash—
the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.
It's better to live humbly among the poor
than to live it up among the rich and famous.

Shattered Pride

Psalms 51
^1-3Generous in love—God, give grace! Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt,
soak out my sins in your laundry.
I know how bad I've been;
my sins are staring me down.

^4-6 You're the One I've violated, and you've seen
it all, seen the full extent of my evil.
You have all the facts before you;
whatever you decide about me is fair.
I've been out of step with you for a long time,
in the wrong since before I was born.
What you're after is truth from the inside out.
Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

^7-15 Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean,
scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don't look too close for blemishes,
give me a clean bill of health.
God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don't throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I'll let loose with your praise.

^16-17 Going through the motions doesn't please you,
a flawless performance is nothing to you.
I learned God-worship
when my pride was shattered.
Heart-shattered lives ready for love
don't for a moment escape God's notice.

Heart of Worship

Psalms 54:6-7
I'm ready now to worship, so ready.
I thank you, God—you're so good.
You got me out of every scrape,
and I saw my enemies get it.

Thank you Jesus for the freedom, and now I am ready to worship.

His Anointed

Psalms 20:4-6
May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.

We will shout for joy when you are victorious
and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.
May the LORD grant all your requests.

Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he answers him from his holy heaven
with the saving power of his right hand.

I know that the battle is already won, and you deserve all the glory. Thank you Jesus for choosing me.

what do you hear?

Manna Fairy, Manna Fairy, what do YOU hear? You hear the LORD whispering in your ear...

She came again tonight and left 4 bags of grocries on the door step... we serve a very mighty God who whispers to all of us from time to time...do you listen? What do YOU hear?

God please pour out your blessings on the ones who listen to your urgings... and help me to be more like them...

Who am I?

1 Chronicles 17:16
Who am I, my Master God, and what is my family, that you have brought me to this place in life? But that's nothing compared to what's coming, for you've also spoken of my family far into the future, given me a glimpse into tomorrow and looked on me, Master God, as a Somebody.

God, why did you pick me? Why did you lead me on this faith journey? Why did you plant a seed of entrepreneurship in my soul? Why did you promise me a future far beyond what I could dream of?

I believe that God invites us all on a faith journey, but many are unwilling to step out in faith. What has God called you to do? Are you willing to put logic behind you and take a blind step of faith? Are you willing to make the short term sacrifices in order to see God's will done in your life?

Mana Fairy Strikes Again

Last week we ran out of milk early in the week. I was on the way to Walmart only to find 2 half gallons of milk on the doorstep. God is so good!

The wonderful ladies from Linda's Sunday school class sent $200 just in the nick of time. We are so thankful for their ability to hear from God and be obedient.

Even after my faith filled post last week about Daily Bread, I was struggling with a bad attitude on Saturday. We were down to our last $10, and I was starting to get nervous. I remembered my post on the way to the airport, and I made a conscious choice to turn toward God. I turned on some Christian music and started praising. I was able to leave it in His hands.

Last night, my parents blessed us with a large check for all the work that we had done on their home while they were on vacation. It was far beyond what I had expected, and God reminded me that "Your Grace is Enough."