Episode Summary. There is one investment you can make in your child’s future that God guarantees is more precious than gold, that will bring him a lifetime of enjoyment, a lifetime of protection from harm and a lifetime in which he is richly rewarded. It is explained in Psalm 19. This episode’s focus is on how to make such an investment. 

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. In the study of the six facets of the jewel of God’s Word—his law, testimony, precepts, commandments, fear, and judgements, which ones stood out most to you?
2. Since God’s plan to bless the nations was to call Abraham and his family to faith and then the fathers command their children and households to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, why have Christian men been slow to focus on this responsibility?
3. Why is it important, in teaching our kids, for us to follow the Deuteronomy 6 pattern to starting with our motive for loving the Law of God being to please him because he first loved us.
4. Why do you think God tells parents in Deuteronomy 6 to talk about applying the Word of God throughout the day? 

Link to Leadership Diagram

Link to New City Catechism

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Episode Summary. Spiritual leadership at home is bringing our followers along with us in our whole-hearted pursuit of Christ. Persuading them to join us in this pursuit is almost completely dependent upon winning their hearts, which requires building our love relationship with them. We are inspired by the example of Jonathan Edwards, whose commitment to building his relationship with each of his kids was manifested by his decision to take a different child with him each time he traveled to speak. This episode identifies four ways that dads are inclined to tear down their relationship with their kids and then provides five necessary investments to build it up.

Link to Leadership Diagram.

For Further Prayerful Thought,

1. In what ways did Jonathan Edwards demonstrate what it takes to be a successful spiritual leader at home?
2. What relationship busters are you most concerned about committing?
3. Which of the following relationship builders do you think is most important for you to focus upon in your spiritual leadership at home: understanding, affirmation, companionship, compassion, attentiveness to practical needs?

Link to PDF about the Successful Spiritual Leadership at Home series

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Episode Summary. The word husband is from the world of agriculture; it means to cultivate. This episode points to seven ingredients identified in Scripture that Christian husbands are to pour into the soil of their wives’ hearts to cause them to flourish. 

For Further Prayerful Thought.

1. What are the strongest arguments for a Christ-following husband to continually invest the nutrients into his wife’s hear that she needs to flourish?
2. Take a moment to review the first three needs mentioned in the podcast/blog. Which of these needs do you feel best about meeting in your wife? Which do you most want to remember to focus upon in the coming days?
3. Take a moment to review the last four heart needs mentioned. Which of these needs seems most important to you? Which one do you most want to remember to try to better meet in the coming days?
4. How can you do a better job of being intentional about meeting these needs in your wife’s heart? 

Link to PDF about the Successful Spiritual Leadership at Home series 

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Episode Summary. Almost all men would love more consistency in their lives. We know that is the key to success in every area of life, not the least important of which is success leading our homes well. But how can we more consistently stay focused on our mission from Jesus? This episode supplies two answers: First we must have clear picture of the goal towards which we are heading and leading our families—spiritual maturity as Christ’s disciple. Most of us have only a vague idea of what mature discipleship looks like, and it is hard to take a first step towards a fuzzy goal or lead others to reach it. So, we look to Scripture and arrive at three concrete callings that reflect Jesus’ call to discipleship for all of us. The second way to stay focused on our mission is to follow a clear pattern for managing his life that Jesus clearly followed. This pattern not only helps us stay focused but it renews our spiritual energy.

Link to Leadership Diagram

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. Why does it make sense that spiritual leadership at home which seeks to lead our families to be fully devoted mature followers of Jesus, requires us to stay focused on this mission ourselves.
2. What are the differences you can think of between having a clear picture of mature discipleship versus a fuzzy picture of mature discipleship?
3. What does Jesus’ routine withdrawal into his private world with the Father to discuss his mission imply for his followers? Why don’t more Christians follow this pattern?

Link to PDF about the Successful Spiritual Leadership at Home series

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Episode Summary. This episode begins by noting that Genesis 3:17 tells us that God’s curse upon Adam for his rebellion in the Garden of Eden was not just for transgressing the command not to eat the fruit but for his reversal of God’s created order of roles. Man’s call to lead the home matters to God. This episode examines what leadership is and is not, providing a diagram for understanding the three functions of leadership. We then add flesh to this skeletal structure by shaping a 5-fold job description for men as they function as spiritual leaders of their homes.   

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. Why do you thin God told Adam he was being punished for his role reversal as well as eating the forbidden fruit?
2. What stood out to you in this episode about what leadership is not?
3. How would use explain the three functions of leadership? (arrows in the diagram)
4. What stood out to you about the job description of men being the spiritual leaders at home?

Link to Leadership Diagram.

Link to PDF about the Successful Spiritual Leadership at Home series

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Episode Summary. Mary, one of the godliest women who ever lived, agreed to bear God’s child and what does she receive? A sword to her soul. Few song writers I know have put Simeon’s promise that a sword would pierce Mary’s soul to music. It isn’t sung about by children’s choirs in Christmas pageants. But Luke's account of the true Christmas story ends on the ominous note of suffering caused by the opposition of the kingdom of darkness to Jesus’ kingship claim, just as Matthew’s Christmas story ends with the weeping of Bethlehem for the children slain by Herod’s fear of Jesus’ rule—reflecting this same opposition of the kingdom of darkness to Jesus’ kingship. This episode reminds us of the kingdom of darkness’s fierce opposition to the rule of the Prince of Peace and what to do about it.

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. What are the implications of these two facts: men love darkness because their deeds are evil, and we are called to be light to the world?
2. Which two cultural lies do you hear most often? How best could you raise a question about whether that assumption is really true?
3. How can you do a better job of defeating sin in your own life by using the spiritual armor and weapons Jesus has given us? 

NEXT WEEK NEW SERIES: Successful Spiritual Leaders at Home. Please let the men of your church know about this new series. You can print a PDF to give to others, download the PDF onto your computer and email it as an attachment, or just send an email with this link to the PDF, which explains what the series will cover. Here is the link.

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Episode Summary. This agent of familiarity is hard at work this Christmas season, spreading layers of the poisonous dust of the ordinary over the manger in Bethlehem to deaden our senses to the staggering reality of what actually took place there. This episode seeks to blow off that dust to reveal with fresh clarity five ways the incarnation can evoke radical devotion to Jesus. May a fresh look at the incarnation fill us with fresh energy and passion to follow our Master well.

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. How do we balance the truth that sin is so heinous and God so just that only he could pay for our sin—the truth that we must take sin seriously—with the truth of God’s grace towards us and call to treat others with grace?
2. How can you better apply the truth that Jesus is your Great High Prist and Advocate, who fully understands every form of pain and injustice you experience?
3. How does Jesus’ choice to be born into a manger instead of a palace impact your heart?
4. In what way is the decision to become poor so that another becomes rich a definition of agape love? How can we better remember what it cost our Lord to redeem us?
5. How can we better draw upon the power of the Holy Spirit to change our default, subtle focus from ourselves to others and how I can serve them?

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Episode Summary. Countless committed Christian men wrestling with sins like lust and masturbation have asked a legitimate question. If Christ has redeemed me from slavery to sin, why am I still regularly giving in to lust and masturbation? Didn’t Paul say the Christian’s old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for the one who has died is freed from sin and then repeat in verse 18 that Christians have been set free from sin. How can this be true when we default to lust, selfishness, resentment too easily and know that our heart attitudes are miles away from being like those of Jesus? This episode addresses the question, If Christ defeated sin at the cross, setting Adam’s kingdom free from its destructive slavery, why isn’t earth’s culture more sanctified and why am I, myself, not more sanctified?

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. What evidence would you point to from Scripture that proves that the oppressors the promised Messiah would overthrow always were Satan, sin, and death and not the political oppressors of Israel?
2. How does the Already/Not Yet description of this period of redemptive history clarify things and muddy things?
3. The Second Adam’s overthrow of the triumvirate, Satan, sin, and death and ascension to God’s right hand has positioned Him to spread his kingdom of righteousness and restoration over earth for 2000 years. Of the 6 ways that I mentioned its impact on culture, which ones stood out most to you?
4. Which reason for Christians’ lack of sanctification stood out most to you?   

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Episode Summary. It is easy today for discerning Christians, who see the loss of biblical values taking place in our culture, to view this world as a sinking ship, going down to destruction through the weight of its own evil. But such despair can easily lead us to forget the very first commission God assigned us as humans—developing the potential of the creation God loves and shaping life in it to please him, life that is righteous. A “titanic worldview” of the culture ignores a very significant part of God’s nature: He is a delegator. His act of delegating the further creation and rule of Kingdom Earth is accomplished in the very first commission given to Adam and Eve. “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” This episode examines how God delegated to humans the process he started, i.e. creating and ruling the material order and why such an understanding gives everyday life great meaning.   

For Further Prayerful Thought

1. How would you explain to someone the Genesis 1 teaching that God has delegated his royal rule over Kingdom Earth to mankind?
2. In what sense would you say God has finished creation and in what sense would you say he has not finished his work of creating?
3. When considering the Genesis 1:28 four-fold First Commission God gave to Adam and Eve, what is the significance of God starting out with the love-making process of husband and wife the first part of that commission? How can we uphold the value of the first human institution—the family—without  demeaning those who are single, divorced, or childless?
4. If the goal of both The First Commission and the Great Commission is to spread the righteous rule of Christ over every sphere of human life (beginning with surrender to King Jesus in the human heart) why do we Christians spend so little effort being intentional abut thinking through how to impact those spheres of human life where we have influence? 

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Episode Summary. In December 2004, a massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean killed more than 250,000 people. Over the following weeks, the news media were filled with articles asking, “Where is God?” One reporter wrote: “If God is God, he’s not good. If God is good, he’s not God. You can’t have it both ways, especially after the Indian Ocean catastrophe” Suffering nearly always creates doubts in the human mind about God’s goodness. And if God is not good, then his moral law is just his selfish restriction upon human pleasure, which was the reasoning Satan used to lure Eve into rebellion. This episode examines the massive implications of God’s perfect goodness, not just in resisting temptation, but in enduring suffering, and in shaping the way we interact with the fallen world.

For Further Prayerful Thought 

1. How would you refute the argument: If God is all-powerful, he could end suffering and evil. If he were all-good, he would end evil and suffering. Evil and suffering exist. Therefore, either God is not all-powerful or not all-good. The Christian god does not exist?
2. Summarize the three “goodness of God” truths that James tells his readers to cling to when facing trials. Which seems most helpful to you?
3. How does the common grace doctrine that God has given gifts to the unredeemed to enable his world to be developed and enjoyed, impact the way believers should view unbelievers and secular culture?

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