The Sacred Man

Over the last several months I have learned to be more of a reader after a gentle nudge from a friend. I believe leaders are readers and I hope this podcast challenges you to be a reader.

As a man, God has given you the single most important treasure in life next to himself. It is your wife. You need to learn her, communicate with her and fight for her as God intended for you to do. As a man, you have the ability to fix or improve your marriage. You can lead it in the right direction. Your responsibility as the husband is not based on how she reacts or responds. The right thing is always the right thing. If you decide to take action and be the man God wants you to be for your wife, your marriage could change dramatically.

In this episode, I talk about a few thoughts on learning new things. I believe every man should be a learner; always striving to become better. I hope this helps, encourages and challenges you to become the man that God has called you to be.

My name is Brian Miller and I believe the world needs more manly men, especially in our churches. I will be looking to talk about, learn about and bring in guests that will help us all learn how to become better men. Why do I want to talk about manliness? Well, because Adam, the first man, was a manly man. Abraham was a manly man. King David was a manly man, and the list goes on including Jesus Christ, the ultimate example of a man. I believe manliness is being attacked in our culture and I want to join the fight to keep it alive. Welcome to the Sacred Man Podcast!

This is a topic that has been on my mind for quite some time. We have been studying the life of Daniel at my church who was a man of prayer, I talked last week about George Muller, who was a man of prayer, and this week, I started into the book "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire" by Jim Cybala and he was talking about the importance of prayer. It has been a big topic on mind recently through more than just these instances. I know that God is calling me to more prayer and I hope this encourages you to do the same.

Today, I talk about George Muller, a man who is known for being fully dependent upon God while having one of the greatest impacts on the orphans of Bristol England. George Muller never asked people for help. He alway went strait to God. He has a lot of lessons to teach as you read about his life and ministry. In this episode I read some of his quotes and talk about some of these lessons.

God Communicates with us. It is an amazing thought to think that the God who created the universe that we are unable to measure, chooses to communicate with us! There are a few ways that God communicates to us that I talk about in this episode. First, He communicates through His Word. We have the written Word of God! Second, He communicates through His Holy Spirit. For those who have accepted Him as Lord, he has given His Holy Spirit who dwells in you and brings to remembrance the thing that Jesus thought. Finally, He speaks through other people. There are many example of God sending people to deliver His message; Samuel and the kings, Ananias and Saul, Peter and Cornelius. God also tells us to go be His witness to the people around us. If the God of all creation wants to communicate with us, shouldn't we pay attention to what He has to say?

Today, I have an episode that I recorded weeks ago, but never posted it. In it, I talk about pride and one of the ways we can fight pride in our lives and ministry. God opposes the proud but give grace to the humble. You cannot be effective in ministry if you are prideful. If you think about it, we really don't have anything that we can say we did all on our own. Everything we have, everything we can do, hope to do, or hope to become is from God. He put us where we are and gave us the abilities we have. We should give credit where credit is due.

Recently, my wife and I have been watching the TV series, Forged in Fire. I have always been fascinated by process of forging a weapon or a tool from a rough piece of steel. In this episode, I talk a little bit about this process and how it can apply to the life of a believer.

If you are like me, every now and then, you go through this phase where you are out of focus, confused, and depressed. Whatever it is you are working on or working toward at the time just doesn’t seam so important anymore. You wonder if you should have started it in the first place. You want to quit. I’ve been there. I was there this week. Don’t quit. That is not the time to make important decisions. In fact, that’s probably the worst time to make important decisions. How did you get there? For me, it was the choices I made that got me there. I chose to make the work more important that the one Who allowed me to work. It is easy to forget that in Him we live and have our being. We are designed to have fellowship with God. I want to talk about 3 simple steps to get back on track and to make sure you are not making the wrong choices. The first one is to seek God. Read his Word. Pray. You won’t be able to make good decisions in your life if you are not seeking the source of wisdom. There is a spiritual war going on around us and I believe whenever you set out to do something good for God, you will get pushback from the forces of evil. The only cure for evil is the Book of Righteousness. Seek God. The second is to get around people you can trust. I have talked about this before. This is where accountability comes into play. Accountability is not just for correction. It is also for encouragement and wisdom. If you have the right people in your life, they can help you to make better decisions and help to keep you on track with whatever it is you are working on or working toward. My wife is someone I can talk to help keep me on track. I also have a small group of men that can help keep me on track. Get around people you can trust. The last is to get back to work. Don’t let discouragement keep you from doing what you know to do. Sometimes, you won’t feel like doing anything. Sometimes you’ve got to do it anyway. My Sunday School teacher would say, “You have to drive your spirit.” Sometimes it is a choice of the will to do what is right. Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” If you get back to working for God and not working for yourself, then God will guide you in the way that you should go. So, if you find yourself out of focus, confused and depressed, seek God, get around people you can trust and get back to work.