Home  Ministries Adult Men
Men
|
DC 02/27/08 |
|
|
Daily Courage Devotional
|
We are pressed on
every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed,
but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned
by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.
2 CORINTHIANS 4:8-9
NLT
This scripture came attached to a
devotional a friend forwarded to me yesterday and as is
true of much these days I was reminded of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah was "pressed on every side by troubles" and at any point
could have thrown up his hands and given up/picked up his toys and
gone home.
He didn't though. He knew that God
would not abandon him. He knew that he was not alone in what he was
doing, regardless of how alone he may have felt. This is the beauty
of a true relationship with God. The beauty is that you still
suffer, you are still challenged, you still face ridicule. All that
said....you have Him.
Be strong and
courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the
LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you
nor forsake you."
DEUTERONOMY 31:6
NIV
Think of those in your life who you
are closest to: family, friends. People that you trust. People that
trust you. It is very likely that this list is small for
most of us. Is there anyone on this list who you are
assured will never leave you and
never forsake you? This does not mean that we do
not need friends and family/that we do not need Christian brothers.
We do. It does however illustrate who we have in Jesus if we put
our faith and our trust in our Heavenly Father.
K
|
|
|
DC 02/26/08 |
|
|
Daily Courage Devotional
|
|
Then the fifth time, Sanballat
sent his aide to me with the same message, and in his hand was an
unsealed letter in which was written:
"It is reported among the
nations-----and Geshem says it is true----that you and the Jews are
plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall.
Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their
king and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation
about you. In Jerusalem: "There is a king in Judah!" Now this
report will get back to the king: so come, let us confer
together."
I sent him this reply: "Nothing
like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up
out of your head."
They were all trying to frighten
us, thinking, "Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it
will not be completed."
But I prayed, "Now strengthen my
hands."
NEHEMIAH 6:5-9 NIV
Sanballat did all that he could to
discourage/frighten/intimidate Nehemiah in his God-guided mission
to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. As the scripture indicates,
Sanballat attempted contact with Nehemiah via messengers and notes
a total of five times. A reading of chapter 6 in its entirety will
give you the details of the first four attempts. Read the unsealed
note of attempt number five though. He slanders Nehemiah. Sanballat
has written a letter designed to make Nehemiah believe that he has
been defeated, that no one believes in what he is doing and what he
has prayed to God about and acting in obedience to carry out.
Imagine receiving this letter. Maybe you have received such a
letter. Maybe someone had written or spoken or passed on in some
ways a "letter" full of lies about you. What is the usual,
immediate, worldly response to a "letter" like this?
The concept of defending one's
life is leaping to mind. It is necessary to go chest to chest with
your accuser or find a laundry list of his faults (true or
otherwise) and circulate those. How does Nehemiah respond? Simply.
"Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are
just making it up out of your head."
And he then concludes that his
discouragers used these fear tactics to weaken them. What does he
do next? He prays for God to strengthen his hands.
Always in prayer. Always back to the Lord for protection.
Do you ever pray your fears? Pray directly into them? Pray
from the storm itself and ask God to provide you all that is
needed? Nehemiah did not back down and he did respond to
the letter but he did not expend energy spewing back
anger.
Who is your Sanballat? I am not
asking you to name names here just want to know if you know who the
enemy uses and is using to discourage and intimidate you. How often
have you prayed for your version of "stronger hands"?
K
|
|
|
DC 02/25/08 |
|
|
Daily Courage Devotional
|
|
God does everything just right and
on time, but people can never completely understand what He is
doing.
ECCLESIASTES 3:11 NCV
This verse takes me back to the
book of Nehemiah where I have been living and studying lately.
Nehemiah is moved to do something about the state of Jerusalem. He
is told by his brother that the wall that surrounds the city, a
wall that was originally built to give its people protection
from all manner of outside sources and forces is essentially
rubble and that only a remnant of those who lived there remained in
Jerusalem. We have talked here and taken a closer look at how he
cried out to God (Neh 1:4-11) due to the burden he felt for his
people. He acted on this burden/this concern but constantly with
prayer to guide him. God's perfect timing carried this project to
completion through risk of his position or death at the hand of
Artaxerxes, other death and physical threats, ridicule,
disdain, fatigue, fears and doubt that this project never should
have been attempted in the first place and, being put in a position
to confront the men in Jerusalem with power and means for
how they were taking advantage of those who had
neither.
I would encourage you to read
Nehemiah with the notion of God's perfect timing as well as the
un-necessity (a word I just made up but I think you get the point)
of always understanding why He does what He does when He does it.
Do you have any examples of God's perfect timing and how it is or
has manifested itself in your life? Is there any scripture which
guides or helps you when you doubt His perfect timing? If so, send
these responses to me at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
K
|
|
|
DC 02/22/08 |
|
|
Daily Courage Devotional
|
Teach your
children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they
will remain upon it.
PROVERBS
22:6
I have received several responses
about this scripture and various interpretations of it which have
led me to write today's DC.
As I have repeated often in DC I
was or most certainly felt different from the rest of my family and
my peers. It took me accepting myself for who I was to get me
through my teenage years and a number of bad choices as an adult as
well. When I look back on my childhood I realize that my family did
ultimately accept me for who I was. Supporting my love of theatre,
allowing me to devote time and devoting time to a passion of mine
that they did not quite understand though they knew that it was
something that I needed and wanted to do.
I can remember my stepfather
driving me into Rochester (about 30 minutes from home) every
Saturday morning for quite a while so I could participate in an
improv/theatre games class. I was about thirteen or so. He
remained parked outside and waited for me about 90 minutes. This
simple, consistent act spoke volumes. My Dad (which is truly who
Bill is to me) sacrificed his Saturday mornings to sit in a car and
wait for me to be done pretending I was a tree or whatever else was
planned for that morning's class. I was so certain that he did not
understand who I was because I was not like his other sons
John and Gary. These were messages that Satan planted and I bought
hook, line and sinker over time.
It truly took the love of Jesus to
wipe away or certainly override my self-doubt, my worry but my
parents were trying their best as well. My suicide attempts
rocked my family to its core and though I was not praying
openly I am certain that someone was praying for me/for my
family and this is what carried me through.
Time, understanding and the belief that "You
get me. You understand who I am/what I am about." is what I needed
and what most children/teenagers need in one way or the other. I
took the long road to understanding, appreciating and acknowledging
that I was worth the time but the planted seeds were somehow
watered and did eventually bloom.
K
|
|
|
DC 02/21/08 |
|
|
Daily Courage Devotional
|
Teach your
children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they
will remain upon it.
PROVERBS
22:6
Thank Shane
Mitchell and John Faulconbridge for today's DC. Their responses to
yesterday's encouragement are included below. -K
I found out something
interesting the other day at church when the Pastor was
speaking. He mentioned very clearly that this verse states
the child will not depart from it when he is older, not necessarily
while he is younger. Once the seed is planted then it is
planted--although it may be forgotten about for a season here and
there.
I believe one of the most
important things we can do as fathers is to relay the truth to our
children through teaching of the Word, attending church, living a
godly lifestyle, and ministering to their needs. We are not
be molding them into someone they are clearly not. Speaking
from experience I can tell you that this approach fails. I
cannot expect my child to be me nor for me to be my child.
Each individual is unique and each individual has a particular will
for God to manifest in his or her life. No two people are
alike just as no two wills for people are alike.
I have taken many positive and
negative influences from both men in my life. It is like
chicken--down with the meat and out with the bones. It is too
sad, often enough, that some parents refuse to let their children
grow up with the admonition of the Lord. They want their
children to grow up learning how to control others just as they
did...
Shane
Your openness
about your relationships with your grandfather and "dad" have
definitely struck a chord within me as this thread has developed.
In many ways, my dad was a great example of values to emulate
(Honest/strong/hard working/devoted to family). In an equal
number of ways (or maybe even more) he set examples that I have
been struggling to overcome or avoid. Many of the issues that
I had with drinking, anger management (or the lack thereof), the
need to be "tough/perfect/successful/respected/first" stemmed from
the expectations that were laid out of what it meant to be a "man"
and my desire to please dad. This set of personal standards
also heavily influenced how I approached God in the beginning.
I really didn't understand Grace, I couldn't accept when I
fell short of MY expectations of what a Christian man was, I
doubted my relationship, I wondered if I ever really was saved
(sort of sounds Baptist for a Nazarene) and so on. It has
taken literally years to come to grips with exactly what grace
means, with the fact that God's love and forgiveness are almost
unconditional (the one condition is that we ask for it) and that we
can't prove that we are worthy we can only accept that his blood
washes our sins away.
I think
that it is really important for all of us that we recognize how we
view our relationships with our earthly fathers and how that can
skew the relationship with our Heavenly Father. It's also
important for those of us who have worked through some of those
issues to be able to counsel/help those who are struggling because
of their bias.
John W.
Faulconbridge
|
|
|
DC 02/20/08 |
|
|
Daily Courage Devotional
|
|
Teach your
children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they
will remain upon it.
PROVERBS
22:6
My mother
remarried when I was about nine years old which means Eric aka
Ricky (He prefers being called Eric but he is
forever Ricky to me and the rest of my family too)
was six and Sandi was four. My Mom married a man who was stable,
calm and strong who had also been through a divorce and also had
three children. For the record, we had a dog (but his name was Tiny
not Tiger) and we did not have a live-in maid though we
certainly could have used one being as there were six of us
under the age of seventeen living under one roof. We were
not exactly the Brady Bunch but close enough.
Bill Hancock was a
stabilizing force in my life and the life of my mother, brother and
sister. I struggled to have a close relationship with him but this
was truly because I had never had a relationship of trust with any
male figure in my life. As I glance back and take a real look at my
life I can see that he always treated me with respect. I spent a
lot (too much) time comparing myself to John, one of my
stepbrothers, who was athletic and more Boy than me. I decided that
Bill did not like me because I was not like John. What I discovered
through his actions was that Bill (who in my heart is truly my Dad)
absolutely loved me like I was his own son. It took a moment of
anger meant to help me "choose the right path" to help me
understand this. More to follow about this in upcoming
encouragements.
When you look back
at your own father (or whomever was instrumental in
raising you) can you see the positive as well as the negative
aspects of his influence on you? Your life as a husband? A parent?
What about your walk with Christ?
|
|
|
DC 02/19/08 |
|
|
Daily Courage Devotional
|
And, ye fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord.
EPHESIANS 6:4
KJV
In the course of writing these
encouragements over the last few days the Holy Spirit has brought
me back to my son, Eric. Eric will be eleven in April. Hard to
believe. It has been such a pleasure to watch him grow/to
watch his personality develop. As most fathers know, there are
times when our children do something/say something and it
seems like an echo. An echo of what we did/ how we behaved at
that age. Sometimes the echo that comes back can worry us,
particularly if we have not fully accepted who we are/where we
have been. If there are doubts or worries or regrets about our
childhood that have led to doubts about whether or not we are good
or worthy we may shudder when we hear our past echo in our
children.
Eric at times shows much of the
sensitivity that first showed itself in me when I was a child. That
sensitivity made me different/ made me feel different from my peers
but I was unable to see it as a strength. I viewed it as a
weakness/ as a disability and believed that the world felt the same
way about this part of me. So sometimes my
traits echo at me through Eric. At these times my
first instinct (not born out of prayer but my first
instinct) is often to immediately protect him/ to shield
him from the ridicule that I received as a child by encouraging him
to not be who he is.
This is a trap. In an attempt to
keep him safe/ protect him from the indifference or cruelty of
others I could be causing him to do the same thing that
the off-handed comments of my childhood did. I could be
causing Eric to doubt who he is/ to doubt that how God
made Him was and is a part of a plan that he may never fully
understand and ultimately does not need to understand.
As I glance back at the scripture
above I am drawn to the word " provoke". Do not get me wrong.
Provoking our children is not in and of itself a bad thing.
Provoking them to think and analyze and grow closer to God? Yes.
Provoking our children to wrath? Look this word up and then
see if this is even remotely something you are drawn to do to
your children. I know I often mention the necessity of
transparency/ of being transparent in our interactions with our
Christian brothers. How and when are we transparent with our
children? Transparent about what we have and do struggle
with?
|
|
| | << Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>
| | Results 100 - 110 of 143 |
|
|
|
