Seasoned pastor R. With biblical wisdom, memorable illustrations, and engaging study questions, this practical guide will empower men to take seriously the call to godliness and direct their energy toward the things that matter most. For many people, the word discipline evokes a sense of resistance--but Kent Hughes points out that the heart of spiritual discipline is a relationship with God.
This tract gives ten practical areas for a man to grow in spiritual discipline. Compatible with any devices. Barbara Hughes carefully guides her readers through the Scriptures, asks them questions for self-evaluation, and provides helpful suggestions for direct application of these fundamental spiritual disciplines. Do you have a healthy heart? Any physician will tell you that in order to live a healthy life you must take care of your heart.
And that includes both exercise and a diet low in the 'bad stuff' and high in the 'good stuff. Discipline is at the root of a healthy spiritual heart, as well. For the man who desires a life of spiritual vitality, discipline is the daily habit that transforms mere desire into doing, and turns good intentions into contagious Bible reading, deepening prayer, and an irresistible urge to follow Jesus. Discipline is not a stumbling block but a springboard to spiritual growth.
Wagner offers this practical tool that will guide men toward the goal of godliness. His life-changing message comes home in three sections: 1 The Need for Discipline - Discover who and what you can become through the joy of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Spiritual disciplines are to the believer what medical school is to the doctor. Tell me how to be good.
You need to be at their plays, speeches, recitals, and sporting events. You need to schedule regular time alone with each of your children. You need to take the lead in planning terrific family vacations and in celebrating and cementing family solidarity. I thought we would never get through many of the stresses. But when these great events are recalled in all their color, there seems to be no time between them.
That is why, whenever I have occasion to hold a baby in my arms, I often encourage the parents to savor every moment and not to rush through the experience — the child will be grown up and gone in no time. The realization that we have only a brief time to raise our children should give us huge motivation to make the most of it and should make Scriptural advice about fathering pulse with importance for us.
Men, time is the chrysalis of eternity — there is no other time but the present. I realize we all go through periods in our lives when we have little time for our families — it is part of the natural rhythm of life. Now is the time to take time. There is no other! Will you do it? Will I? Men, we must evaluate our fatherhood. What does your heart tell you as you read the questions listed below? Are you weak or strong?
What awesome power we have! Men, their hearts are turned to us! And our Lord wants our hearts to be turned to them. Now that Christ has come, this is a perpetual result of His saving work. When a man truly gives his heart to Christ, it is turned toward his children. Ask the Holy Spirit for the power to practice the discipline of fatherhood. Food for Thought What did you expect or want from your father? Has this happened? What do your children expect or want from you?
Is this happening? As a father, are you too strict or too lenient? What can you do, practically, to become more balanced in this area? Do you ever make the same mistake as Jacob and Joseph favoritism? How can you stop doing this? What should take its place? What does Proverbs teach about parenting?
What error did the priest Eli make in relation to his sons? How are you doing in this area? How can you do better? List some of the attributes of your Heavenly Father, as described in the Bible. Which of these should be emulated by you as an earthly father? List specific ways each of these should be practiced in your life with your children.
Then share your findings with your sons and daughters. Long gone are the days when homes all had large front porches, with easy access to the front door, enabling one to become quickly acquainted with others in the neighborhood. In the s we have architecture which speaks more directly to our current values.
The most prominent part of a house seems to be the two- or threecar garage. Inside are huge bathrooms with skylights and walk-in closets larger than the bedroom I grew up in. Modern architecture employs small living and dining rooms and now smaller kitchens as well, because entertaining is no longer a priority. Once inside, he removes his armor and attends to house and hearth until daybreak, when he assumes his executive armament and, briefcase in hand, mounts his steed — perhaps a Bronco or a Mustang — presses the button, and rides off to the wars.
There is this cave In the air behind my body That nobody is going to touch A cloister, a silence Closing around a blossom of fire. The average American family moves four times, even when the job does not force it.
This is especially true for men. He reports: To say that men have no intimate friends seems on the surface too harsh. But the data indicates that it is not far from the truth.
Even the most intimate of friendships of which there are few rarely approach the depth of disclosure a woman commonly has with many other women.
Men do not value friendship. We all know that men, by nature, are not as relational as women. Men do not reveal their feelings or weaknesses as readily as women. They gear themselves for the marketplace, and typically understand friendships as acquaintances made along the way, rather than as relationships.
Also, men fear being suspected of deviant behavior if they have an obviously close friendship with another man. Such thinking ignores the wisdom of both Scripture and life. While this relates directly to the creation of Eve, it is also a primary ontological statement about the nature of man, who is, whether he admits it or not, a relational being.
His growth and significance are worked out in relationships. Christ is our example. God becomes our Father; we become eternal brothers and sisters.
Friendship is not optional. You also need Christian male friends who have a same-sex understanding of the serpentine passages of your heart, who will not only offer counsel and pray for you, but will also hold you accountable to your commitments and responsibilities when necessary. We will now consider a prime example of this kind of friend. In fact, there were only two swords in the entire nation, those of King Saul and his son Jonathan. All Israel was in a dark funk of depression and despair — all, that is, except Jonathan.
Jonathan saw matters differently. He believed that if God willed it, Israel could be saved, even by a few. While others looked down, he looked up and saw a great and glorious God who could deliver him anytime He saw fit. Armed with this conviction and his sword, Jonathan and his armor-bearer attacked a Philistine detachment alone. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Assured that God would deliver them into his hand, Jonathan launched a horrifying single-handed attack.
It was mano a mano, hand-to-hand, man-toman. Blood ran to the dust and white bone gleamed in the sun as Jonathan sliced and hacked attacker after attacker, until twenty Philistines lay spread over a terrible half-acre. Blood-covered Jonathan was one tough hombre! Even his great heart was affected, as he too trembled before Goliath. There was no one of like mind, he thought — until he encountered David.
At last Jonathan had found someone whose heart was in tune with his — a friend. What followed was the flowering of a deep male friendship, one of the most celebrated friendships in all of literature.
Here was a man whose heart beat with his! This is the way it is with deep friendships. It is not that friends think alike on everything. Often it is quite the opposite. But they do share the same worldview and approach to life.
And this is why a Christian friendship exceeds anything that exists between nonbelievers — for such a friendship is founded on a supernatural mutuality of soul. The Holy Spirit makes your souls chorus the same cries.
You know when this happens, and it is wonderful. This is an amazing statement because of its immediacy. This love did not develop in a month or even a day, but in a flash! This love would pay great dividends because honest, unselfish love has irresistible drawing power.
David would be drawn to the same love, as we shall see. What sublime spiritual theatre — symbolism of a noble soul! Esther His disrobing was a conscious display of vulnerability and real risk.
We may wonder, is such friendship really possible outside the sacred pages of Scripture? After all, these men were spiritual giants. But consider what happened when a twenty-year-old Anne Sullivan arrived in Tuscumbia, Alabama, to tutor the blind and deaf seven-year-old Helen Keller, who could only utter animal-like sounds and often fell into destructive rages. By ten, Helen was writing to famous persons in Europe — in French. She mastered five languages and displayed far greater gifts than her teacher.
Still, Anne Sullivan was devoted to Helen, sitting beside her famous pupil at Radcliffe, spelling the lecture into her hand. The deepest of friendships have in common this desire to make the other person royalty. There are no hooks in such friendships, no desire to manipulate or control, no jealousy or exclusiveness — simply a desire for the best for the other. Men, are we kingmakers? This is most remarkable, because after the first flush of dramatic commitment he was reminded by his father no doubt more than once!
Loyalty is indispensable to the survival of friendship. How many once-prosperous friendships have faded because of disloyal talk? For example, when he delivered the town of Keilah from the Philistines, he learned that the citizens of the town were plotting to turn him over to Saul — and so off to Horesh in the desert he fled, disheartened and terribly discouraged.
What a friend! This undoubtedly involved instruction, prayer, and mutual worship. But it did not remain onesided. Repeated mutual commitments began to mark the friendship of these two remarkable men. Male friendship has reached Heaven when men make such promises to each other. A Great Loss David was destined to be king, and he and Jonathan planned to be side by side as David ruled.
But that was not to be, for Jonathan and his brothers died with their father on Mount Gilboa at the hands of the Philistines.
David was crushed with sorrow. In grief he wrote a lament, and commanded that all the men of Judah be taught it. The lament ends with these words: How the mighty have fallen in battle! Jonathan lies slain on your heights. I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished! This is testimony to the poverty of his relationships with his wives, an inevitable result of the sin of multiplying wives cf.
Deuteronomy It reveals the beauties that can be ours in a deep male relationship grounded in God and sets the standard for all deep friendships. Discipline of Friendship Today friendship has fallen on hard times.
Few men have good friends, much less deep friendships. Individualism, autonomy, privatization, and isolation are culturally cachet, but deep, devoted, vulnerable friendship is not.
This is a great tragedy for self, family, and the Church, because it is in relationships that we develop into what God wants us to be. But deep friendships and friendships in general close friendships, good friendships, and casual friendships are there to be made if we value them as we ought — and if we practice some simple disciplines of friendship.
And we must pray for the opportunity to develop friendships. Such relational requests may not occur naturally to the minds of most men, but they are prayers which God delights to answer, as my own experience, and that of many other Christian men, amply testifies. Need some good friendships? Spiritual logic demands that prayer is the place to begin. But the people pressed him for an answer, so he asked them what the town was like that they came from.
They answered that it was terrible — the people were rude and small-minded. We need to be consciously cheerful. We need to ask questions. We need to place ourselves in situations where friendships happen. If you are a regular church attender but do no more than attend morning worship, you are depriving yourself and the church of the friendship so desperately needed by all. Women are so much better at this than men. We must learn from them to take the initiative.
Work Few of the truly valuable things in life just happen. Usually when they do, it is because we recognize their value and go for it. You can have just about anything you want if you work for it. If you want to make a million dollars badly enough, you can very likely do it.
If you want to earn a Ph. We generally get what we set our sights on. It is the same with friendship. Those who have friends place importance on them.
This is why women have more friends than men. Affirmation If we will work at affirming others, we will have friends. I have a friend who sends me a note every two or three months that is meant to affirm me and encourage my steadfastness. Compliments have huge buoying power. Be liberal with honest affirmations, and you will have friends. Listening Even more, men, if you will work at being a good listener, you will develop friends.
If we discipline ourselves to be accepting, others will see the sparkle of our eyes, the tilt of our head, the ethos of our voice — and will know that acceptance is there. An open, accepting soul is like a well-lit home on a cold dark night. But the command is for both genders. Men, you ought to take the initiative in practicing hospitality see 1 Peter , whether you are single or married. We must set ourselves against the cultural consensus and pursue and practice friendship if we are to be all God wants us to be.
Most of all, we must overcome our privatized hearts — for Christianity is a relationship with God and His people. Friendships hold the promise of grace! How would such a friendship show itself apart from sexuality. What truths of Christian friendship are evident in the relationship between David and Jonathan 1 Samuel 14 — 18? List as many as you can. How can you become more like Titus? Why would some men choose not to?
What does prayer have to do with your friendships? What do 1 Peter and Hebrews teach about friendship? How can you apply these Scriptures to your life? List those whom you consider good or close friends. After each name, tell why you see that person as a friend. Then summarize what you are looking for in friends and why you value such relationships. Its twelve to fourteen billion cells are only a shadow of its complexity, for each cell sends out thousands of connecting tendrils so that a single cell may be connected with 10, neighboring cells, each of which is constantly exchanging data impulses.
These twelve to fourteen billion brain cells times 10, connectors make the human mind an unparalleled computer. Put another way, there is more electronic equivalent in one human brain than in all the radio and television stations of the entire world put together!
The human brain does not miss a thing. It is capable of giving and receiving the subtlest input — from imagining a universe in which time bends, to creating the polyphonic texture of a Bach fugue, or transmitting and receiving a message from God Himself — feats no computer will ever accomplish.
But the mystery which resides between our ears has this capacity. Indeed, it was created for this — to have the mind of Christ. How to order the mind on sound Christian principles, at the heart of where it is formed and informed, is one of the. Christians leave their twelve billion cells unguarded and unthinking — and undisciplined. The Scriptures tell us rightly that input determines output — that our programming determines production.
The true, the noble, the right, the pure, the lovely, the admirable all defy negative exposition. Each ingredient was, and is, a matter of personal choice — and our choices make all the difference in the world. We all can choose a thought program which will produce a Christian mind. I understand that if over the years one has chosen the impure and the illusory and the negative, it is very difficult to change.
But as a Biblical thinker I give no quarter to myself or anyone else who rationalizes his present choices by the past. Brothers, as Christians we are free to have a Christian mind. It is within our reach, and it is our duty. He knew the dark side of human experience. Romans 1 proves that. But he chose not to make such input a part of his mental programming. So we must lay down as fundamental to our Christianity this truth: a Christian mind demands conscious negation; a Christian mind is impossible without the discipline of refusal.
Charles Colson tells of sitting at dinner with a president of one of the three major television networks. Knowing that TV executives have an intense interest in profit, Colson suggested that it would be good business to air wholesome family entertainment.
Colson, is that we run more programs like, say, Chariots of Fire? Are you aware of the ratings? It was 2 with Where are we? But the disturbing truth, as studies by the secular networks as well as the Christian Broadcasting Network show, is that the viewing habits of Christians are no different than those of non-Christians!
Since TV is a business, it gives its customers — the public — what they want. It is but a mirror image of us. According to A. Nielsen, the TV set in the average home is on seven hours and seven minutes a day, and the average viewer watches four and one half hours each day. To attract and hold its audience, the TV industry feels it has to parade the taboos of culture: adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, incest, violence, and sadism. There is a distinct connection between these things and the background of TV executives as compared with the viewing public.
Only 7 percent attend church regularly, as compared to 55 percent of the viewing public; 44 percent have no religious affiliation, as compared to only 10 percent of the viewers having no such affiliation.
Here it is: It is impossible for any Christian who spends the bulk of his evenings, month after month, week upon week, day in and day out watching the major TV networks or contemporary videos to have a Christian mind. This is always true of all Christians in every situation! A Biblical mental program cannot coexist with worldly programming. If we are to have Christian minds, there are things we must put out of our minds — and this extends beyond TV, to what we read, listen to, and laugh at.
My advice? Stop watching television. I mean that sincerely! Not watching TV will liberate so much time, it will become virtually impossible not to become a deeper person and a better Christian.
Even if you play poker with your friends, you will be better off, because you will be relating to human beings! I am not suggesting a new legalism which forbids TV and the cinema. There are many worthwhile things to view; moreover, while Christianity is by nature countercultural, it is not anti-cultural. But I am calling for believers to take control of their minds — what comes in and what goes out. If you cannot control what you watch and read, perhaps it needs to go. My wife and I chose to raise our children without a television for this very reason, and we have no regrets.
What we did is not for everyone, but it may be for you. We need to allow Christ to be Lord of our prime time. Let us not settle for being like other Christians or for having a church that is like other evangelical churches. May we be different because we have Christian minds. The word he uses is logidzamai, from which we get the mathematical computer-like word logarithm.
Frankly, most of it gets tossed. I read the return address to see if it is an ad, perhaps open it, scan a few lines — and away it goes. But if it is an outdoor catalog, say the Orvis catalog, it gets deliberate and prolonged contemplation — especially the Superfine graphite fly rods.
We are to think about the wonderful elements God wants us to put into our computers. God calls us in His Word to a massive and positive discipline of the mind. General William K. Harrison was the most decorated soldier in the 30th Infantry Division, rated by General Eisenhower as the number one infantry division in World War II. General Harrison was the first American to enter Belgium, which he did at the head of the Allied forces.
He received every decoration for valor except the Congressional Medal of Honor — being honored with the Distinguished Silver Cross, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart he was one of the few generals to be wounded in action. When he was a twenty-year-old West Point Cadet, he began reading the Old Testament through once a year and the New Testament four times.
General Harrison did this until the end of his life. Even in the thick of war he maintained his commitment by catching up during the two- and three-day respites for replacement and refitting which followed battles, so that when the war ended he was right on schedule. When, at the age of ninety, his failing eyesight no longer permitted his discipline, he had read the Old Testament seventy times and the New Testament times!
No one could be busier or lead a more demanding life than General Harrison. His closest associates say that every area of his life domestic, spiritual, and professional and each of the great problems he faced was informed by the Scriptures. People marveled at his knowledge of the Bible and the ability to bring its light to every area of life. He lived out the experience of the Psalmist: Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.
I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts. Some simply cannot read well, or fast, and speed reading is not the answer. It was about Russia. Pursuing God really is an adventure—one that can get extreme, one you'll never tire of. Becoming a young man after God's own heart is a lot like climbing a mountain. You'll find all sorts of challenges on the way up, but the awesome view at the top is well worth the trip.
Real success in life—the kind that counts with God—starts by discovering God's priorities for you. These include Students are often tested to evaluate their academic knowledge, but few Christian schools use objective measures to determine if a student has become a true disciple of Christ.
Unfortunately, there are few organizations that provide metrics for measuring biblical knowledge, let alone any sort of comparative evaluation of students engaging in the Christian disciplines, forming a biblical worldview, or actually being impacted spiritually by the programs of the school. No matter whose statistics one chooses to believe, the inescapable truth. Home » Disciplines of a Godly Man. But you must take up the challenge to be a disciplined, godly man in today's world.
With these relevant words and the grace and power of God, you can reach His goal for you! Donor blogistics Edition 1st printing with study questions. There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write a review. Books for People with Print Disabilities.
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