Having said all of that, none of these are good excuses to not have consistent times of family worship. By the way, not every time will be difficult. Though “family worship times” are not commanded in Scripture, this is a discipline that has proven beneficial for children and parents for thousands of years. I can tell you from experience and from listening to older dads who raised children having family worship that there is no better way to raise your children in the fear and instruction of the Lord (which is commanded).

Tonight in our family worship we had one of those difficult nights. After it was over, I exclaimed to my wife, “I get it. I understand why so many men don’t do this or have a hard time being consistent with it. I get it.” Tonight wasn’t even one of our teaching nights. We were only going to sing two songs, pray and be done. That’s it! We have “rules” or “guidelines” the kids are expected to abide by:  no toys during worship, sing with us, pay attention, etc. In that short span of time, I had to reiterate those rules several times, confiscate toys, separate the older two because of bickering, constantly redirect the two year old away from my desk before everything was in the floor, warn the middle child for sticking out his legs to try and trip the two year old, stop and discipline said child for disobeying and actually tripping the two year old, and wait as my wife put the crying two year old to bed. And all I wanted to do is sing two songs to Jesus as a family!

So, again, let me say I understand the frustration and excuses why dads don’t lead their young families in worship. But they are just that…excuses, not valid reasons to excuse us from our God given mandate to pass on our faith to our children. Dads, man up and be a blessing to your children. That’s why He  allowed them to be born into a family of believers, so they would learn the faith and have the biblical foundation they need in this life lived for the glory of Christ!

In a previous post I tell What Family Leadership Looks Like In My Home and offer resources to help dads make this a regular part of family time together.

Family Worship Is A Discipline | BiblicalMen.com - Resources for biblical manhood

• God’s glory (majesty, holiness, apart-ness). – Eph. 1:6, 12, 14
• God’s wisdom in working His plan and purpose. – Eph 1:5, 8, 9, 11
• God’s love for His children and the blessings we have in Christ. – Eph. 1:3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13-14, 19

In looking at these verses and themes, if you pull any of them out of context or out of the whole and base your doctrine or theology on those, you could run into one of a couple of ditches.

Bless-Me Theology

You could end up thinking that God is all about you or us as humans. This theology focuses on God’s blessings toward us and thinks that God exists to bless and make much of us. God is all about making you feel good, making you successful, blessing you with a great job or lots of material things. Some things you might hear people who believe this way say are:

• “Just look at all the riches we have in Him.”
• “I’m a child of the King, therefore I deserve this or that.”
• “We are blessed with blessings in the heavenlies.”
• “See God’s love for you. He would never let anything bad happen to you. It’s not his will.”

When God is all about you, you are all about you and everyone else should be all about you also. When this is your attitude, if you don’t get your way, you get angry at the people around you and upset with God because He didn’t give you what you wanted or “deserve.”  Of course we would never say this is what we believe, but our actions, or rather reactions, when we don’t get what we want sometimes prove otherwise.

Worm Theology

In this ditch God is always and ONLY about Himself and never involves us at all. He is a distant force that does whatever He wants with no regard for His creation. You don’t really pray much because you don’t want to bother Him with your petty little life and problems. In this way of thinking God becomes a cold, heartless dictator. Some of the thinking that accompanies this theology are:

• “I’m a loser.”
• “I’m worthless.”
• “I’m nothing at all.”

The Glory Cycle

There is a biblical balance here. God is about God, to be sure! Yet in His wisdom, glory, and grace He has chosen to glorify Himself by saving and adopting sinners. This is really Good News! This has been His plan all along. If you are a believer in Christ, God initiated the whole process. You can see this all throughout Ephesians and especially in chapter 1.

• God created you. – Ps. 139:13-16
• God came to you in Christ knowing that we are hopeless without a Savior. – John 1:11-14, 29
• God died for you. – 1 Cor. 15:3-4, Rom. 5:8
• God drew you to Christ through the Holy Spirit. – John 6:44
• God gave you the faith to believe. – Eph 2:8-9
• God saved you. – Eph. 2:4-5
• God made you a new creation. – 2 Cor. 5:17
• God holds on to you. – Rom. 8:39, John 10:27-29
• God began, sustains, and completes your salvation. – Phil. 1:6
• God will glorify you. – Rom. 8:30

This is how God has decided to glorify Himself. We get to be caught up in this glory-cycle! We are the benefactors of God’s self-glorification. Yes, we are sinful, wicked, rebellious, and pitiful AND yes, He has chosen to lavish His love on us, giving us His riches, and through adoption making us heirs with Christ of a glorious inheritance.

Application

Any pride that you and I may have in ourselves because we are saved or we know the Bible or we’re moral people is absolutely sinful and a slap in the face of Christ. We are saved by Him. We desire to know Him through His Word and live a life that pleases Him ONLY because He has placed His Spirit within us and made us alive. A prideful Christian is an oxymoron. If we have a boast it is only in Christ’s power and our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9, Gal. 6:14).

Don’t focus so much on God’s blessings that you forget why He saved you in the first place. Don’t focus so much on God’s sovereignty that you forget that He does love you and calls you His own.

Thoughts From Ephesians 1 | BiblicalMen.com - Resources for biblical manhood

So I decided I would pull back the curtain and let people know what it looks like in my home for me to lead out spiritually. This is in no way meant to be braggadocious on me or my wife. All credit and glory belongs to God alone. I wish I had time to tell of the immeasurable healing and restoration that He has brought into my family! Nor is this me trying to tell other men exactly how they should lead in their homes. Every home is unique and as such will operate a bit differently.

I’m merely trying to call attention to the fact that as men, we are the pastors of our families! This is our calling in life. It is our job to pass on our faith, teaching them who God is. We ARE leading our families whether we know it or not. The question is: Where and to whom are we leading them?

In this post I will focus on what family leadership looks like in regard to my children. I’ll deal with leading our wives in another post.

Most week day mornings before I go to work we sit down for just a few minutes after breakfast (or during) and start the day off with some Biblical truth. We just finished going through the book “Big Truths for Young Hearts” where the kids would memorize our “big idea” for the week (the chapter titles) and the verse that went along with it. We would spend just a few minutes talking about what the big idea and verse actually meant and how it applies to our lives. Then we prayed and I left for work. That usually took less than 10 min each morning. We just started going through the “Catechism for Boys and Girls”. I ask them a question and they give a memorized answer. Then I read one of the verses that go with the Q & A, we talk for a minute or two about it, pray and that’s it.

Family worship in the evenings is also very important. If the only times your kids see you sing, pray, or look at a Bible is in church on Sunday mornings you’re telling them by your actions how important God is to you and your family and nothing you say to them to the contrary will overturn that! Don’t let the term “family worship” scare you. You don’t have to have a full blown 1 hour worship service! Make it simple, make it short.

We usually try to have family worship/devotions about three nights a week. We don’t always follow the same format. Sometimes we sing a song, read our devotion, and pray. Sometimes we just read our devotion and pray. Sometimes we just sing a few songs and pray. The point is to make it a regular event to worship Jesus in your home as a family! When the older two kids were younger we would read a story from “The Jesus Storybook Bible” and they loved to act out the stories. Currently we are going through a book called “Long Story Short” where each devotion is laid out for you, points everything to Christ, and only takes about ten minutes.

Above all, don’t get discouraged if you have a few bombs. Trust me, you will have them. You will drop the ball! Don’t get discouraged if you think that your kids aren’t getting it or that they just don’t care (anyone who thinks this doesn’t happen has never tried it with a five year old boy). Be consistent! Keep going. Keep doing it.

Next, we simply talk about God a lot! My wife and I try to point them to Christ as much as we can. For instance if one of my kids talks about how good something tastes I will agree with them and then ask something like “I wonder who made this taste so good?”. They answer “God” and we eat lots of that good tasting food, giving Him thanks. If you watch a movie that has a hero in it, that should always remind us of the hero of the Bible and our hero, Jesus. You don’t have to get deep all the time and be weird, but make God-talk the norm around your home. Also, no question about God is “off limits.” If I don’t know the answer I simply tell them I don’t know. If it is a valid question I will tell them that I’ll find out or we could find out together.

When it comes to discipline we always talk about what they have done and why it’s wrong before we spank or ground them. When we talk to them we point out the fact that what they have done is sin that comes form a sinful heart. This gives us a chance to constantly reinforce the gospel and our need for a Savior. It is important that they know we are sinners too, who need God’s forgiveness just as much as they do. We also want them to understand that we are correcting them and trying to line them up with the Word of God and that that is our job as their parents.

Other ways I lead my family that they never really “see” is by praying for them and praying for God’s guidance as I lead. Also by researching, resourcing, and reading about family leadership. I like finding things out from other men who have been where I am or are where I am in life. This includes listening to sermons, audio messages, reading books, blogs, etc. I’ve not been the dad of a 7 year old girl, or a 5 year old boy before so new situations come up all the time.

All this leads me to my last point. If you try to do this on your own, without the power of the Holy Spirit, it will crush you. The weight of family leadership will either scare you off to where you do nothing, make you so depressed that you do nothing, or push you to Christ who tells you to cast your cares and burdens on Him. He is the One you are after. He is the One you are leading your family to.

Additional Resources

• Family Driven Faith - Voddie Baucham
• Family Shepherds – Voddie Baucham
• Shepherding a Child’s Heart – Tedd Tripp
• Give Them Grace – Elyse Fitzpatrick
• Biblical Parenting Series – Voddie Baucham
• Biblical Parenting Conference – Tedd Tripp
• Proverbs – Mark Driscoll
• Image & Glory of God – Matt Chandler
• More books on biblical parenting
• More audio messages on biblical parenting

What Family Leadership Looks Like In My Home | BiblicalMen.com - Resources for biblical manhood

Our tendency is to completely overlook Paul’s first words of chapter 4: “I Therefore.” Meaning that he expects theses things to happen because of what he has laid out for us in the first three chapters. Paul spends the first three chapters of his letter reminding us of who Christ is and what He has done on our behalf and the blessings we have because of His sacrifice. In fact, Paul’s first command doesn’t show up until Eph. 4:1! He literally spends half the letter displaying the glory of Christ and the beauty of His gospel! We’ve got to understand the first three chapters (indicatives) before we move on to 4 and 5 (imperatives).

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” - (Ephesians 1:3-14 ESV)

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” - (Ephesians 2:1-10 ESV)

Christianity is not about what you do, it’s about what Christ has done for you (1 Cor. 15:1-4)! You don’t get saved by the gospel and then move on to the “deeper things” of the faith. That’s the whole reason Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians. We are to grow IN the gospel, growing in the love and knowledge of God in Christ.

Yes, the New Testament has commands for believers to follow. But, if separated from the gospel, you run in to major problems. There are a few ditches we need to avoid when talking about commands in the New Testament, or Old Testament for that matter.

Three ditches to avoid:

Despair

Law without the gospel will cause people to see the bad news that they will never measure up or be good enough for God, without seeing the good news that Christ has done this for them. They think that they’ll never be good enough for God, so they walk away from Jesus and the church. You see, the law did what it was meant to do – crush us and reveal our need for a Savior (Rom. 7:13). But, if no Savior is preached, people end up feeling hopeless or run off in to the next ditch.

Pride

Some will run to the law for confirmation that they are a good person and living a life on the outside that is pleasing to God. They believe that their obedience either saves them or keeps them saved, whether they say it or not. They usually obey the letter of the law while neglecting the spirit of the law. The prideful live a life in constant comparison with their fellow humans, allowing people to be their standard instead of God’s revealed will for their lives in His Word (Mt. 23:25-26). They prove they do not truly comprehend the gospel. The gospel says if they are truly saved, they used to be the very people they think they are better than and their salvation had nothing to do with their “goodness” (Eph. 2:1-5).

Antinomianism

This is just a big word that means no law. This is more popular in our culture today than it ever has been, especially in the church. You hear it every day, but you don’t realize it becasue, on the surface, it sounds spiritual. It usually goes something like this: “We don’t need a bunch of rules and laws in the church. If we would just simply love God and love others, people would see our kindness and be led to repentance.” There are several things wrong with this approach, but we’ll walk through three of them.

First, YOUR kindness alone will not lead someone to repentance. Neither will your adherence to the law for that matter. God has ordained the preaching (telling/sharing) of the good news of Christ to be the means by which the Holy Spirit will awaken and save people (Rom. 10:14-15). Also it is in the gospel that people see the kindness of God (not you) that leads them to repentance (Rom. 2:4).

Next, the “love God, love others” bit. There are two things I see wrong with this statement when used in this context.

1. “Love God. Love others” is a summary of the Law! When Jesus siad that (Mt. 22:34-39), He was not giving us an “out” from obeying the rest of the law. He was summing it up. Those are the two tables of the Law.
• Commandments 1 – 4: Love God (Ex. 20:3-11).
• Commandments 5 – 10: Love others (Ex. 20:12-17).
2. This new “law of love” is an even heavier burden than the rules they are trying to run from. Which is more difficult: That I love my nighbor perfectly as the Bible says I should – sacrificing my wants and desires in order to help him, putting his needs before my own, and using my time, money, and energy to make sure I’m loving Him rightly… Or, not sleeping with his wife? Again, which is more difficult: That I love God fully, whole-heartedly, perfectly devoting myself to Him, worshipping Him at all times… Or, don’t get drunk? The point being, people who say this don’t want rules, yet place a heavier burden on themselves and others. The mantra then becomes, “It’s okay if you didn’t do it all right today, you can just try harder tomorrow.” Jesus showed us that the spirit of the law or the law of love is much deeper than mere outward obedience and much heavier than we could bear (Mt. 5:19-48). Though this is what we strive for as believers, we do so knowing that even our best efforst on our best days are tainted by our inherent sinfulness. This law of love Christ obeyed and fulfilled to the fullest (Mt. 5:17). This is the righteousness we receive as a gift when we trust in His work on our behalf.

Lastly, the third thing wrong with this popular antinomianism position is the most obvious one to see. There ARE commands and requirements in the New Testament!

We are to lovingly submit to Christ’s loving leadership just as He commands wives to lovingly submit to their husband’s loving leadership later on in the letter (Eph. 5:22-23). Paul isn’t just giving us a bunch of do’s and don’ts – he is showing us how we are to grow up in Christ, in our faith. We are not to remain children in our faith, tossed about by every wind and wave of false doctrine. Old, selfish, sinful habits have to be trained out of us (sanctification).

Once you have spent time digging through the first part of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and understand why he wrote that part first and you begin to comprehend God’s overwhelming love for His children, then you are ready to get to the imperatives of chapters 4 & 5 and walk in a manner worthy of your calling in Christ Jesus.

Pride, Despair, or Rebellion: The 3 Outcomes of Legalism | BiblicalMen.com - Resources for biblical manhood

The group is open to all men (married, single, young, old, etc.). We’d love to have you come by and hang out with us.

We’ll meet every other Thursday night at 7pm and the meeting places will be varied between the homes of some of the men in the group (see “Location” for meeting dates and “Maps” below for directions). We have a pretty intense study of the book of Ephesians to go through this season. I’ll outline the format and schedule below.

Meeting and Study Schedule

Meeting – 1.3.12 (Discuss new meeting time) – Location A

• Week one – Read through the book of Jude several times.
• Week two – Study the book of Jude.

Meeting – 1.12.12 (Discuss Jude and introduction to Bible study methods) – Location A

• Week one – Read through the book of Ephesians.
• Week two – Study Ephesians chapter one.

Meeting – 1.26.12 (Discuss Ephesians Ch.1) – Location B

• Week one – Read through the book of Ephesians again.
• Week two – Study Ephesians chapter two.

Meeting – 2.9.12 (Discuss Ephesians Ch. 2) – Location A

• Week one – Read through the book of Ephesians again.
• Week two – Study Ephesians chapter three.

Meeting – 2.23.12 (Discuss Ephesians Ch. 3) – Location B

• Week one – Read through the book of Ephesians again.
• Week two – Study Ephesians chapter four.

Meeting – 3.8.12 (Discuss Ephesians Ch. 4)

• Week one – Read through the book of Ephesians again.
• Week two – Study Ephesians chapter five.

Meeting – 3.22.12 (Discuss Ephesians Ch. 5)

• Week one – Read through the book of Ephesians again.
• Week two – Study Ephesians chapter six.

Meeting – 4.5.12 (Discuss Ephesians Ch. 6)

Location A

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Men’s Group Winter/Spring 2012 | BiblicalMen.com - Resources for biblical manhood

We’ve all had times alone with God that we wish we could have remembered or applied to our lives better. And I am no different. Lately since I have found a system that helps me read, understand, and apply the Word I have been able to really dig some great truths and life giving revelations out of my times with God. I love sharing this process with others. That’s why I was honored to be asked to speak at my church while the pastor is on a mission trip. He asked me to speak to them on Bible study or “Quiet Times” (that phrase bothers me, makes me feel as if I’m in trouble or something). Below is the outline I typed up to use as I taught. I have revised it for the blog to help it be a little more readable, but it still may be a bit choppy, sorry. I hope it will be of some help though. It is a Bible study method I got from Pastor Matt Chandler of the Village Church in Texas and I am indebted to him for it. Full audio HERE.

How many of us, when we sit down and have a great time with God, end up forgetting most of it by noon?
I want to help us build out a system to help us receive and retain more of what we experience with God.
The Bible shouldn’t be read as a news paper or just another book. It is a source of life giving revelation and wisdom.

There are three main places in the world to get wisdom:

1. Personal experience. Some would say that the only place to get wisdom is the Bible, but the Bible never told me not to pour gas on a fire… Unfortunately my personal experience told me that. Personal experience should never be the only way we receive wisdom because it is limited to our age. i.e. The only way to know what it’s like to be a 30 year old man is to be one.
2. Other people’s experience.

• This is where we, as evangelicals, tend to make ourselves spiritually impotent.
• We tend to spend our “quiet times” reading daily devotionals. Where we read 1 or 2 verses at most (sometimes only part of one) then the author takes 6 or 7 paragraphs to explain his opinion or view of the text.
• That is us living on other people’s fish.
• It’s not bad, it just can’t be primary.
• With technology, a lot of people are listening to preachers all over the country. And you would be a fool to not take advantage of such great resources. Again, not bad (solid doctrinal teaching is hard to find), but it can’t be primary.

3. The God of the universe.

A survey was conducted across all major denominations to those who consistently went to one church.

• Question: How helpful is the church in your spiritual development?
• Those who had been saved close to a year – “The church is amazing”. We are learning all we can from whomever we can.
• Those saved six years or more – “The church hardly helps at all”. Within about six years we go from passionate pursuit of Christ to churchman. The church as a whole is doing a poor job on teaching it’s members how to study the Bible for themselves and the members are taking no initiative to look into it for themselves.

It has to be our own! But, not ON your own!

I”m not saying you pull away from everyone and develop some weird wacky theology (which will happen if you only trust your interpretation) –  talk to others. We have to find a way for our relationship with God to be truly personal and truly our own. Reading our Bible and studying it is only one way we grow as Christians. God has ordained that we grow as believers when we get involved in, and submit to a local church, and when we have godly, biblical relationships with people who have authority to call us out and correct us.

Remember your faith is not ultimately about you. God is the one who saved you and He saved you for His will and for His purposes. Everything you learn is not meant to stop with you. It is all meant to be passed on through you in ministry or teaching as you lead your wife, kids, in the church and in the community.

Tools not Rules.

Cheesy rhyme I know, but please don’t think I believe you have to do it like this or you’re doing it wrong. I’m just stating what works for me. Though I believe there are a lot of solid principals to be taken from this system. We are all wired a little differently. You must find what stirs up your heart for Christ!

Things you will need:

Consistent time and place.

• Day or Night. Whenever your mind works the best.
• Don’t waste time looking for a different spot every day.

Bible.

• I like the ESV and other word for word translations. They take the original Greek and Hebrew and translate them word for word which makes them not quite as poetic or flowing as some others. But I think thought for thought translations would be fine as long as their not your only translation you read from.
• Easiest act of submission in Christianity. You are telling God you don’t have the answers, but you know He does. And you are trusting your life to His Word.
• We don’t pursue knowledge just for knowledge’s sake. Knowledge puffs up.
• Knowing God by J I Packer. Turning knowledge of God into knowing God.
• There are no excuses. All of us could spend some time in the Word even if it’s just a couple of verses a day.

Pen and highlighter.

• Certain Scriptures will pop out at you.
• What is making those pop out? You did ask God to speak to you before you started.
• Reading the Bible says “I want you to speak to me”.
• The pen and highlighter says “I hear you”
• Some might object to writing in your Bible saying that you might get confused and start thinking that God told you to write that and that it’s as important or perfect as the Word. There is an easy answer to that… The stuff in ink is me and therefore is subject to change. If it’s in print… you get the point.

Reading plan.

• A book at a time…
• Don’t have to waste time finding something to read.
• It forces you to think about things you normally would not.
• Don’t be afraid of the tougher texts because they are the ones that push you to dig deeper!

Journal.

• It’s not a diary! Just write down what God reveals to you in the Word.
• Helps you track yourself.
• The journal says “I want to do something with this”.
• Doesn’t have to be a big expensive deal.

Day planner ( ipod, to-do list, laptop, etc.)

• All of us at some time or another have been trying to focus on God in prayer or Bible and had ten things run through our mind that we need to do that day.
• Don’t waste time doing them or rebuking them.
• Write them on your list and come back to them when you are finished.
• This helps free your mind and relieve that stress and worry so you can spend as much time as needed with God.

How the plan works.

20,20,20 Plan(for lack of a better term again). Remember: tools not rules. I usually go for about an hour, but the breakdowns sometimes don’t follow this pattern.
20 min. Reading (give or take) *Pray first. Not just reading to check off a list.

• Highlight sections that pop out at you. ½ a verse to a paragraph.
• Notes in Bible.

20 min. Journal.

• Write down one verse you highlighted that stood out most.
• Date, page number, title.
• Write down observations based on the context of the book or chapter.
• Go back and check the cross references and footnotes in your Bible.

20 min. Application & Prayer

• How does this effect my life?
• Avoid ambiguity and be as specific as possible for that day.
• Repent where you are convicted.
• It’s not legalistic to do what the Word says and what the Spirit points out to you. Especially since you prayed beforehand and asked Him to speak to you!
• Write out your prayer as well.

Lastly share what’s been going on with your spouse or friends.

Introduction To Bible Study | BiblicalMen.com - Resources for biblical manhood

“A Call To Pray” – message from Matt Chandler.  This is one of the best messages I have heard on the topic of prayer. It was so encouraging. As we see God’s love for us, as our Father, and His desire for us to pray, prayer becomes a joy instead of a burden.

“Christless Christianity” – book by Michael Horton. A great book that points out some of the flaws in the American church, where those errors arose, and how we, as Believers, can focus on Christ and His work accomplished for us.

BibleArc.com - John Piper’s method for studying the Bible involve a system called “arcing”. This site is dedicated to showing how to integrate this method into your Bible study habits.

“How Manhood and Womanhood are Different” – Video with John Piper and Darrin Patrick.

White Horse Inn – Website for theological resources and discussion.

New Content 1.6.12 | BiblicalMen.com - Resources for biblical manhood

This passage knocks in the head the notion that God is just a big cosmic meanie who only wants us to mess up so He can hit us with a bolt of lightening or strike us down with cancer or something of the sort. This also destroys the view some Christians have that God saved them because “they’re awesome” or the view that they have it all together because “they found the light”. The truth is, if you are in Christ, God saved you. God found you. You didn’t find God. And you didn’t save you. Also God didn’t save you because you were special or really awesome. God saved you because of His great love toward you.

Allow this passage to wash over you. Allow God, through His Word and His Spirit, to speak to you and reveal to you who He is and who you are.

Ephesians 2:1-10 - And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Accents and underlines mine).

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The guide that I have provided is something that I ran across at the Village Church’s website. Most of the personal and family devotions come from their guide. My family and I haven’t gone through this particular guide together, but I read through it and trust the leadership at that church. I think we and everyone else will benefit greatly from it. I also added a few things to it that I will be doing with my family. So, I wanted to put it all together and offer it to other families for this holiday season.

It’s a little different than your traditional Advent devotional that would normally focus the whole 4 weeks on Christ’s Messianic prophecies and His birth. This guide goes through the prophecies, His birth, His death and resurrection, and our hope in a Heavenly Kingdom to come. It helps us understand not only how Christ came (as a baby boy) but also why He came and what we have to look forward to because of His coming.

It also includes references to stories from “The Jesus Story Book Bible”. If you have small children, I highly recommend this Bible as a tool to help you point every story in the Bible to Christ!

Advent Guide PDF

Advent Season Devotional Guide | BiblicalMen.com - Resources for biblical manhood

So, instead of trying to discern God’s will for your life, the question now becomes: “How do I make wise, godly decisions that honor and glorify Christ?” That’s what I will address in this post. Though this list is not meant to serve as a formula that helps you “make the right choice every time”, I pray it will help you as it has me and my family in making tough decisions with the goal of bringing glory to our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The order of the list isn’t vital, although I would advise doing the first two steps first.

• Pray. Tell Him your situation and your desire to honor Him in your choices. Ask Him for wisdom and guidance.
• Read the Bible. The Bible does deal specifically with a lot of our questions and problems, but also give us wisdom in how to apply the Gospel to our lives fully.
• Think. Weigh the options. We live in a culture that says we should feel our way to God and feel our way through life. We live in an American, Evangelical culture that believes if you think about a decision and use common sense, that is somehow less spiritual than the person who “just felt lead.” God gave you a mind and the way of making wise, God-honoring decisions is through the renewal of that mind, not abandonment of thinking.
• Be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. While we are to think, we can’t go to the other extreme and say that God doesn’t use our emotions and desires to guide us. Sometimes you are faced with multiple “good” options, yet one doesn’t feel right. Don’t ignore that feeling. That must be taken into consideration when you’re hashing it all out.
• Seek wise counsel from mature believers. Talk through your situation with believers who love Jesus, read their Word, are growing in the faith, and love you enough to tell you when you’re about to make a stupid decision!
• Finally, choose! Make a decision. Don’t wait around forever for that direct confirmation or perfect peace. That may never come and besides, you’re not promised that in Scripture. Once you have put Christ and His Kingdom first, you’ve put others before yourself, you’ve prayed, sought counsel, weighed the options… make the choice you believe most glorifies Christ and do it with all your might.

Though there are consequences for poor or foolish decisions, don’t be too worried about thwarting the will of an infinite, omnipotent, sovereign God

Making Wise Decisions | BiblicalMen.com - Resources for biblical manhood