Strength
Leadership Library Spotlight
by on Nov 13th, 2009 at 2:07 am
Book: Humility: True Greatness
Author: C. J. Mahaney
"God is decisively drawn to humility. The person who is humble is the one who draws God’s attention, and in this sense, drawing His attention means also attracting His grace – His unmerited kindness. Think about that: There’s something you can do to attract more of God’s gracious, undeserved, supernatural strength and assistance!"
- C. J. Mahaney, Humility, p. 20
Talking about humility can be as difficult as trying to define time. We know what it looks like in action, we are familiar with its attributes, but actually putting into words what humility is exactly proves exceptionally difficult. C. J. Mahaney has pulled off one of the better descriptions of it in this book, and his writing comes directly from his humble life and posture.
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What Is The Difference Between Legalism And Discipline
by on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 12:01 am
If we were to discover that Peyton Manning arrived at the Colts practice facility two hours before every practice to review game film and get a mental step ahead of his opponents, most of us would call this leadership or excellence in effort.
If Phil Michelson told us that he refused to drink caffeinated beverages while playing in professional tournaments in order to prevent cramping or sluggishness on the course, we would probably see a huge drop in soft drink sales at golf courses throughout the country.
If Dave Ramsey, a multi-millionaire who dug out of poverty by relentlessly keeping his spending habits in check, consistently saved and invested, and built his debt-free business from the ground-up, told his radio audience that he achieved great financial wealth by eating out only once a month instead of regularly, those of us who listen to him would start freeing our own calendars out of belief in his example and respect for his discipline.
Yet, when our pastors call on us to moderate our consumption of movies, alcohol, hobbies, or pursuit of worldly wealth, we immediately cry out, “that’s legalism!” When they wish to speak about discipline on Sundays, we close our ears because we do not care for more messages that amount to legalistic pronouncements.
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12 Ways To Keep Spiritually Strong Over Christmas Break, Pt. 1
by on Dec 7th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Yeah, so last week, I promised to write about the difference between legalism and discipline only to leave you in silence. I came down with a strong illness that had me bed-ridden for a couple of days so I had to discipline myself to rest instead of pushing through the process of writing and doing other projects. If you will forgive me, I want to put that initial project on hold for a week in order to get to something that I had planned for this week a long time ago.
Because the largest demographic of readers of this site is composed of college students, I wanted to offer some words of encouragement and advice about your upcoming Christmas break, which I’m sure you are more than ready to experience. The thought of three or four weeks of freedom from school is a wonderful luxury that you will get only a few times in your life so I would not be surprised if most of you are thrilled for it to arrive. However, there are others who do not view such a break with such enthusiasm. They are concerned for what it can do to their spiritual condition or for what challenges wait for them as they return to difficult situations at home or church.
Every January, without fail, I have dozens of men who return to campus fired up and excited to be back in such a spiritually stimulating environment because their time at home proved to be a huge step backward in their relationship with God and their struggle against habitual sin. I experienced this as a student when I left a Christian bubble for the “real world.” My college friends often found January to be a release from a time of spiritual struggle at home, and when you think about it, we should not be surprised that Christmas break can ironically be a spiritually destructive time for college students.
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12 Ways To Keep Spiritually Strong Over Christmas Break, Pt. 2
by on Dec 8th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Here are some more suggestions for making your Christmas break a time of spiritual growth instead of struggle or defeat:
Suggestion #4 - Write Christmas Cards
While I was at college, I developed many strong and sweet friendships with men and women who were positive spiritual influencers. Part of my holiday struggles came from the fact that I left an environment where I could easily find one or two of these friends and engage in a meaningful activity or conversation to an environment in which I might be around such people only once or twice a week. The loneliness or lack of passionate disciples of Christ throughout the majority of my days could have been discouraging, but the activity of writing Christmas cards was a way to keep the connections strong.
Whether you have money to buy a pack of cards or can only afford to use blank paper, get the addresses of your friends before leave school, bring a pen home with you, and write one or two letters each day throughout the break. Don’t type them or e-mail them, write them with your own hand.
Letter-writing is a lost art today, and we are not the better for it. When you write with your own hand, the process takes longer, and that is the point. You become more engaged in the process of thinking about the person and what you want to communicate to them. Just thinking about them can bring to mind the encouraging words or actions that they have given to you over the course of your friendship. A quick text, tweet, or e-mail will not give you time to think this deeply about them. By slowing down to write (and with three or four weeks of break you will have plenty of time to go slow), you make your message more personal and provide them an encouraging shot in the arm when they get something in the mail that was never expected. Finally, you will find that investing this time and effort to talk to friends that are spiritually encouraging to you will cause that sense of accountability to remain vibrant.
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12 Ways To Keep Spiritually Strong Over Christmas Break, Pt. 3
by on Dec 9th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Suggestion #7 - Plan Your Downtime
Downtime can be more dangerous to a man than any other time of the day, week, year, career, or life. When we have goals, objectives, an audience, or a source of accountability, we can excel at whatever we are trying to do or be, but when there is no objective, plan, audience, or source of accountability, we can get into all kinds of trouble. I am not saying that downtime is inherently evil. Having a space of time without responsibilities can be a gift, and part of Christmas break should be to embrace that gift. You will only get four of them!
The danger for us in downtime is not in the having it as much as it is in not having a plan for it. Over the past four school years, I have counseled dozens of men who have struggled and given in to viewing pornography. I often ask them to write out how they utilized the time in their past week. Without fail, the period of time in which they engaged in viewing pornography was the time that was unstructured, unplanned, or unscripted. Additionally, they were also alone during that downtime.
During Christmas break, you might have long stretches of time where you are alone and/or free from responsibility. If you don’t have a job, spend time serving others, or minister at your church, you could have weeks of nothing to do. This is a spiritually deadly place to be if you do not actually see these periods of time coming and make plans in advance to avoid the sinful traps lie in waiting for you there.
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Machismo Is Not Manhood
by on Feb 11th, 2010 at 12:22 am
Machismo: A strong or exaggerated sense of manliness; an assumptive attitude that virility, courage, strength, and entitlement to dominate are attributes or concomitants of masculinity (Random House Dictionary)
- A strong or exaggerated sense of masculinity stressing attributes such as physical courage, virility, domination of women, and aggressiveness.
- An exaggerated sense of strength or toughness (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language)
Real men eat meat raw. Real men bench press twice their body weight. Real men drink themselves sober, never lose a fight, and fight often. Real men get the girl, use the girl, and get another girl. Real men grunt, burp, take no prisoners in the corporate world, always get what they want, and fear nothing.
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...Of Whom The World Was Not Worthy...
by on Feb 24th, 2010 at 12:19 am
Have you ever had a day where you started it with a definitive plan only to have something take place that completely changed what you did for the rest of it? Maybe it happens when you come down with a sudden illness. Maybe a phone call with news from home changes the trajectory of your day. Often, these types of days are deemed “bad” because they contain some traumatizing element to them, and that is what happened to me today. It was what I would call a divine interruption because I didn’t ask for it, didn’t want it when it happened, and God wouldn’t let me rest from it even though there was work, good work, to be done with the hours that remained in the day.
I have a regular online reading routine that contains a few dozen websites. Normally, I check these sites in the morning and leave them until the next day. If I don’t discipline myself in this way, I would spend an unhealthy amount of time waiting for new articles to sprout throughout the day. However, one article surfaced on my Google Reader and I checked it out, figuring that one little peak wouldn’t hurt.
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Developing a Critical Mind & Not a Critical Spirit
by on Aug 30th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
The college years can be a pivotal time in a man’s life. Perhaps, for the first time, he is challenged to think critically. He is given access to the thoughts, arguments, and ideas of many scholars that might differ on the same issues, and the development of critical thinking skills is essential to getting to the truth. The leaders in the church and society need to be critical thinkers, so embrace the opportunity to begin strengthening your mental muscles.
As you learn how to test all things, avoid allowing your newfound critical skills to grow out of control and turn into a critical spirit. There is a difference. One is necessary for wisdom and the other is destructive. Here are just a few simple differences between a critical mind and critical spirit:
#1: A Critical Mind Seeks to Understand a Person’s Perspective
Good listening is vital to acquiring a critical mind. We often tend to impose our own perspective on others, so a constructively critical person will make sure that the speaker or author is carefully understood before casting a judgment on the merits of the argument.
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Be Strong In The Lord And In The Power Of His Might
by on Sep 7th, 2010 at 12:50 am
When we think of strength, we often think of physical strength, simple things like how much someone can lift or how fast he can run, things like that. There is some merit to this thinking because it would be hard to call someone a man if he had to ask his mom or sister to open a jar of pickles. However, if that man were a quadriplegic, we would not call him weak. We would say that he possesses a strength that surpasses all physical strength.
The Bible tells us that physical strength is of some merit (1 Timothy 4:8), but what really matters is Godliness. Faith and character blends together to make you a strong man. Working out is incredibly fun, and profitable; we gain strength from it and improve our overall health. There is almost no downside to physical exertion, especially for us as men. We were designed to work hard and to be the stronger more dominate gender. However, this does not mean that we are to all run and work out until we puke every day; that’s called stupid where I come from. Being in physical shape only goes so far, it will make us stronger and fit; not necessarily make us more like Christ.
There is more than enough information about physical training out there in our world today, and if your purpose in life is to be strong in that way, then so be it and take advantage of those resources. This blog is seeking to build you up in a way that you will not find elsewhere, into strong, Biblical manhood. Much in the same way however, being strong in Godliness is somewhat like being strong in body, it takes work. Hard work and lots of it.
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How Did Jesus Deal With Temptation? Some Thoughts
by on Sep 8th, 2010 at 12:20 am
This past June, I was given the opportunity to preach at my home church, and I spoke on Satan’s tempting of Jesus at the early stages of His public ministry. My sermon was really the culmination of a long period of study and reflection on this passage, and I thought that you would find some of it useful.
We all face temptation, and the more aware we are of the seasons of temptation, as well as the nature of temptation, the sooner we will recognize our situation and seek the provision of God to rightly resist or flee temptation.
For the next several Wednesdays, I am going to break down this account and look at the ways in which Jesus was tempted, His responses, and how He has equipped us with the ability to resist Satan, but I will warn you that willpower will not be one of those tools.