Posts

Showing posts from December, 2011

Built to Love

Jesus replied:  "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.    This is the first and greatest commandment.   And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself."'   Matthew 22:37-39 It is very clear that the  essence of scripture is Love.   Through Love we have a relationship with Jesus Christ and can celebrate his birthday this weekend as our Lord and Savior.  The question for us this week is, "Do our relationships mirror the scripture above?"   Love and relationships can at times be a challenging proposition for us men.  However, I haven’t found any gender exclusion in this scripture so  we were built and designed to Love.   (Psalm 139:13) A very good friend passed away this past week and I cried for the first time in I don’t know how long and it felt very manly.  I was very thankful that I had developed a good enough relationship with another man that I could honestly say I loved him and wo

Not Worthy

"And they sang a new song: 'You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.  You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.'"  Revelation 5:9-10   Worthiness   My teenage daughter asked me the other day, "Hey dad, when you first met mom were you like 'Wow, I'm so outta my league.'"  "Ouch!", I responded.  "C'mon I'm not that bad am I?"  We laughed a little bit as she truly wasn't trying to put me down.  It just came out a little awkwardly.  The truthful answer to that question however, is "Yes".  I do not think that I am worthy to be her husband.  As a matter of fact, if I understand the Bible correctly, there is only one thing that I am actually worthy of and that is hell.  Thankfully, because of Jesus, I do not h

Sharp Knives

This morning as I sat down to pray about what challenges were in my life right now and searching for Gods word to  help direct me, I found myself being drawn towards the following: Needing to be still and remove the busyness of life and focus on prayer and true Quiet time with God. (Jesus Example of this in Mark 1:35) Needing to take that same approach with my family and quite frankly was just a little disappointed in how busy I was feeling. The Christmas Season is great time for Satan to distract us and keep us so busy that we distance ourselves from  the very relationship for the season. The newsletter below, from Jon Gordon, hit my inbox today at 9:30 AM and it was so on target with where God  was leading me that I wanted to send it as written. Enjoy, Matthew Likens -- Sharp Knives...and focusing on what matters most! I was speaking to the employees of a hotel/resort the other day and the head chef shared a comment that really  stuck with me. "Yep, I'm a