Saturday, May 29, 2010

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?

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

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.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

"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.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

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.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

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.