Summary

This episode continues our study of the armor of God and finishes looking at Eph 6:15, where we’re told to put on, as our shoes, the readiness of the gospel of peace. Most Christian men want to be contagious Christians. We know that sharing our faith is something our Lord wants us to do and when we do seize opportunities to talk with others about Christ the experience pumps joy and energy into our walk with Him. We also realize that if we are to lead our homes well, our wives and kids need to see us modeling Jesus’ love for the lost and a commitment to seeking ways to share him with others. So, we want to be ready, when the opportunity presents itself, to steer a conversation towards the good news that our listener can have a personal relationship with Christ. This episode looks at three ways TO BE READY when that opportunity arises.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. Does realizing that Jesus tailored the good news to others based on the way they were experiencing the brokenness of life in this fallen world discourage you because it makes sharing Christ harder, since there is no “one size fits all” or encourage you because it helps you realize how wise we are to be about relationships and the uniqueness of every human?
2. Which 2 or 3 of those in your circle of lost associates and friends has God put on your hearts. What might be missing in their lives compared to what you have in Christ?
3. Is God prompting you to be more intentional about praying for and reaching the lost? What might additional intentionality look like for you.

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Episode Summary.  Often Christians think of evangelism like this: It is having the courage to overcome every piece of emotional intelligence we’ve learned about relationships, and intruding into the life of a co-worker, neighbor, or stranger to tell someone, who doesn’t want to hear it, the gospel message that they are a sinner in need of a savior, and then being willing to suffer rejection if we are accused of being preachy. If that is what sharing our faith looks like, who would want to do it? But this view is NOT BIBLICAL. It has major flaws. This episode identifies these flaws and ends up showing a biblical view of sharing our faith that is winsome and begins where people are instead of where we want them to be.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. Why is it misleading to understand the Greek word for evangelism(EUANGELIZO) to mean preaching the gospel to others?
2. How does understanding the four-chapter gospel help us realize that Christ’s kingdom power is for more than just an eternal life insurance policy?
3. Can you think of biblical examples not mentioned in this episode of Jesus tailoring the good news of the kingdom to the point of brokenness being felt by his listener?

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Summary: Do you ever feel like our side is losing in the spiritual battle—that the powers of darkness and evil are winning? Perhaps more specific to our own lives, do you ever wonder why the Christian life is so hard, why sin so easily ensnares us, why our whole-hearted resolve on Sunday to love Jesus better by obeying him more has given way to blatant sin by Sunday night? Today we continue our series, Winning Spiritual Battles Because We Use Our Spiritual Weapons. Paul tells us that to fight evil we must put on the breastplate of righteousness. But most of us don’t even know what the breastplate of righteousness is, much less how to put it on. At the end of this episode, we want everyone to have a clear picture of what this piece of armor is and begin winning more spiritual battles because we put it on.

For Further Prayerful Thought: 

1. What is the motivation for hungering and thirsting for righteousness for one who is confident of God’s unconditional love? How does that contrast with the moralist’s view of the moral law?
2. What is the difference between seeking righteousness and being legalistic?
3. How would you summarize Paul’s command to put on the breastplate of righteousness? What stood out to you about HOW to do this?
4. How is the fourth beatitude (Matt 5:6) a prerequisite for putting on the breastplate of righteousness?

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Episode Summary:  Is our mission today, as Christians living in America, to recover America as a Christian nation? As we process what happened in the last election and the storming of the Capitol since, Christians are divided. Eschewing passivity, many believers feel impelled to speak up on the social media to fight a movement rooted in ungodliness, which they see shaping our culture. They are appalled that younger Christian leaders either don’t seem to see this happening or seem to lack the courage to speak up about it. Other believers are horrified at the views they hear expressed by Christians on social media, which exhibit a kind of “Christian Nationalism” and exhibit Christians to be combative towards those with whom they disagree, violating Christ’s clear command, love your neighbor, not to mention, love your enemy. This episode continues our series Winning Spiritual Battles Because We Use Our Spiritual Weapons by examining how to encircle ourselves with the belt of God’s truth, which must be the starting point for sharing that truth in the culture. Then we consider how to be persuasive as salt and light in the culture, and in particular the dangers of being right, but sharing truth in a HARMFUL, rather than a COMPELLING way 

For Further Prayerful Thought: 

1. Which aspect of fastening the belt of truth around ourselves stood out to you?
2. Why is it important in today’s word to surround our loved ones with truth?
3. How does Jesus’ teaching not to give holy things to dogs or throw our pearls before swine resonate with your experience? Are there times when you have thought that a person is not spiritually in a place to hear this truth?
4. How do Paul and Barnabas follow this teaching from Jesus in Acts 13:44-49. What Thoughts do you have about trying to determine is a potential hearer of biblical truth is in a place to value it or not?

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Summary: This episode continues the series, Winning Spiritual Battles Because We Use Our Spiritual Weapons. Every guy who reads this blog would stand at the door of his house with a shotgun to protect his family physically. But most Christian men feel inept and inadequate at fighting to protect them, spiritually. As we saw last week, Jesus told his disciples the ultimate weapon for defeating Satan is prayer. But if we are going to use this weapon effectively in spiritual battle, we need to understand it. This episode continues our study of what Jesus taught are the six basic parts of effective prayer, in Matt 6:9-13.

For Further Prayerful Thought: 

1. What would you say to a believer who said he thought that reciting the Lord’s prayer at the end of his daily bible reading is what Jesus taught?
2. What struck you about Jesus teaching us to tell our heavenly father what our practical needs are? Have you ever thought about keeping a prayer journal?
3. Why does it make sense that one of the six prayer concerns we should have is looking at past events to see if there is unconfessed guilt or resentment towards another?
4. How can you be more watchful of temptation coming into your life? 

Recommended Resource.

The Focus Notebook is a great tool to help you organize your prayer life.

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Summary: As we seek to run well the race marked out for us, i.e. advance the righteous reign of King Jesus in our own lives, God has ordained one, primary offensive weapon that overthrows the kingdom of darkness:  PRAYER. Jesus said to Peter, “Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you “(Luke 22:31-32). One veteran missionary writes, There is nothing on earth that Satan so fears as prayer. He cannot triumph over prevailing prayer. Satan is more afraid of your praying than of your pure life or zealous witness. One’s life may be a beautiful witness that cannot be silenced, but prayer is a militant force that has the potential of defeating Satan, destroying his works, and driving him out of places and lives he claims as his own. This episode examines how to unlock the power of prayer in our spiritual battles because we know what Jesus taught about how to pray.

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. Why is it important to you to remember that your prayers are directed to one who has adopted you into his family at great cost?
2. Why is the name of God worthy of supreme honor. How can you increase the passion for your life to bring the Lord honor?
3. What would you say to gently correct someone who thought that praying, “Thy kingdom come” means to ask Jesus to return to earth soon?
4. What was the most exciting part of the story of the Kingdom of Christ prevailing on a piece of ground in Fort Collins, CO? 

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Summary: In the last episode we observed that no one can nurture a child as well as his own or her own mother can. Similarly, no one can be the father to your children that you can be. Our job as fathers is to help our daughters flourish—to become all that God created them to be. This episode examines two ingredients required by every daughter’s heart for her to be able to thrive.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. In Matthew 3:17, as Jesus, God The Son Incarnate, was about to embark on his career, he heard the audible words of God The Father from heaven saying what every child wants to hear from his or her father. What are those words and how do they related to what we’ve examined about a daughter’s needs?
2. What stood out most to you about a daughter’s needs?

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Summary: In today’s world, many of our female loved ones are engaged in a very personal spiritual battle about their identity and calling as women, and how motherhood fits into that calling. This episode shows how the mistake of overvaluing motherhood will hurt them and how undervaluing motherhood can be devastating. Only the biblical worldview gets this balance right; so that is our topic today.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. How can understanding colonial culture where work took place at home, help you understand the conflict that today’s mothers have between making a cultural contribution (vocation) and motherhood?
2. How can you lead the way to help men understand that the separation of home and workplace means they have to work harder to build relationships with their family members, so they can lead their homes well?

Recommended Resource:

I highly recommend the primary source used in this episode to evaluate the impact of the Industrial Revolution on family life, Nancy Pearcey’s book, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity  

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Episode Summary: Our calling as men, to help others flourish, means helping our daughters and granddaughters build confidence in the way God created them to be female. Gender differences are profoundly related to our sense of identity. Before helping men know how to winsomely explain the biblical worldview of gender, the podcast identifies two big obstacles that routinely prevent others from being open to the biblical worldview. This episode then articulates the glory of God’s design of humans as male and female. It then suggests questions men might asked their daughters or granddaughters to open their hearts to the biblical view of gender.

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. The best way to teach female loved ones the biblical worldview of gender is by exhibiting godly manhood. What are some places you can improve your commitment to helping others flourish?
2. What have been the objections you have heard to the biblical worldview of gender. Which parts of the biblical picture might they be missing?

Recommended Resource: 

The Meaning of Marriage; Facing the Complexities of Commitment With the Wisdom of God, by Tim and Kathy Keller.  

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Episode Summary: As we close out this Fatherhood Month series, we return to the Andrew Tate phenomenon that is impacting teen guys in our churches, with which we began this series. Tate says, “There is zero advantage to marriage for a man. If you use your mind, if you use your head instead of your heart, and you look at the advantages to getting married, there are absolutely none.” But, in fact research proves Tate completely wrong. Married men and women who have children are in fact happier, wealthier and more fulfilled than their single and childless counterparts. The biblical worldview is that marriage is the foundational institution for society, mentioned in Scripture before the church or civil governments. This episode presents the biblical worldview of marriage, identifying four purposes of marriage, which explain why it is so fulfilling, along with the high biblical view of sexual union, which is so important that God commands married coups to have sex often.   

For information about Men Helping Sons Embrace Biblical Manhood click here

For Further Prayerful Thought:

1. Which of the four purposes of marriage most stood out to you. Why does it make sense that God’s design for conceiving a child is a husband and wife united in the covenant of marriage who have promised to love each other, “till death us do part?”
2. What stood out most to you in the Bible’s High View of Sex? Which of these truths do you wish you knew earlier?
3. How do you think this material on marriage and sex might change a high school guy’s view of God and sex?  

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