Wednesday, August 15, 2012

are you blameless

Blameless TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1 by Os Hillman Wednesday, August 15 2012 "For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless." Psalm 84:11 If you were running for political office, what approach would your opponent take against you? If he wanted to launch a smear campaign, would there be any ammunition for him to use? Think how you would feel if the director of the opposing campaign came to you afterwards and said, "Sir, we tried to find something negative to play up in our campaign against you, but we couldn't." What does it really mean to be a person who is blameless before God? Being blameless before God does not mean we are perfect. No human being is perfect. It means that we so fully trust in God that we are willing to make things right when we fail. We are willing to humble ourselves continually before the throne of God. "...Blessed is the man who trusts in You" (Psalm 84:12). God has a specific plan for the people who fully trust in Him. He promises to be their shield, to bestow honor on them. He will not withhold any good thing from them. What a promise! What motivation to be all that we can be in God. Imagine living a life that God views as blameless, which allows Him to withhold no good thing. Pray that God would make you and me that kind of person.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

YOu are invited

I would like to take this opportunity to personally invite you to our Coaches of Excellence "kick off" event on Tuesday, August 28th at 6:30pm. That evening I would like to share about the new direction in my life as well as casting the vision of COE with you. We will also be hearing from the founder of COE, Rod Olson, who will be with us via Skye. Also that night, I will have Doug Poll from the Doug Poll Group share about our golf marathon we are hosting on Thursday, November 8th. It will be a first class event to help raise money for Coaches of Excellence. I have attached the invitation for you and please pass along to anyone you know might be interested in attending. Please RSVP your attendance and I look forward to seeing you there. Make It A Great Day!! Jason Golden Coaches of Excellence (941) 539-6083 www.coachesofexcellence.com

response

Hey Peter and Brothers Peter had asked the question about when do we start talking to our sons and even our daughters about sexual relations. I remember my surprise and feeling of loss for words when I discovered quite by accident my step son had been attempting to print pictures of naked men with naked men in intimated sexual poses. Because I had just gotten married to his mother, he had not been in my home but for a few weeks at the time. He had no previous exposure to a manly influence or biblical influence in his life. He was only 12 at the time. He is an example of the tragedy of the absence of a Godly man speaking to him from his youth about the relationships with God, with self, with other men, with other women. I believe we should start as early as we think they can understand a cartoon. The world is teaching them what Satin wants them to know. Our children are the prize of this WAR we are in. It is risky business. We expose them to sex as God intended or the world will expose them to it as Satin intended. As for my step son. I am sad to say we will have to pray for him. This world had his spirit in its grip too tightly, before I met him, for me to snatch him from it. Only God can use the seeds I planted. For now he is lost, and I had my heart torn loosing that battle for his heart and soul.

the impostor

The Impostor From the place of our woundedness we construct a false self. We find a few gifts that work for us, and we try to live off them. Stuart found he was good at math and science. He shut down his heart and spent all his energies perfecting his "Spock" persona. There, in the academy, he was safe; he was also recognized and rewarded. "When I was eight," confesses Brennan Manning, "the impostor, or false self, was born as a defense against pain. The impostor within whispered, 'Brennan, don't ever be your real self anymore because nobody likes you as you are. Invent a new self that everybody will admire and nobody will know.'" Notice the key phrase: "as a defense against pain," as a way of saving himself. The impostor is our plan for salvation. So God must take it all away. He thwarts our plan for salvation; he shatters the false self. Our plan for redemption is hard to let go of; it clings to our hearts like an octopus. Why would God do something so terrible as to wound us in the place of our deepest wound? Jesus warned us that "whoever wants to save his life will lose it" (Luke 9:24). Christ is not using the word bios here; he's not talking about our physical life. The passage is not about trying to save your skin by ducking martyrdom or something like that. The word Christ uses for "life" is the word psyche-the word for our soul, our inner self, our heart. He says that the things we do to save our psyche, our self, those plans to save and protect our inner life-those are the things that will actually destroy us. "There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death," says Proverbs 16:25. The false self, our plan for redemption, seems so right to us. It shields us from pain and secures us a little love and admiration. But the false self is a lie; the whole plan is built on pretense. It's a deadly trap. God loves us too much to leave us there. So he thwarts us, in many, many different ways.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Safe Sex


We started Wild at Heart by John Eldredge last week and it was nothing like what I expected.  Jan has integrated several movie clips and it was off the charts.  The first clip was from Gladiator and it set the tone.

I hope you can join us, we have a number of new guys coming and it would be great to see you again.  I am presently on a plane flying back to Sarasota and I wanted to share a thought with you and would love to get your feedback.  When in Maryland I was staying at my mother’s house and in the bathroom there was a woman magazine called Self.  With nothing else to read I opened it up and there was an article in it about Safe Sex.  In bold letters it said unless you are in a monogamous relationship you use a condom.  It went on to talk about Sexually Transmitted Disease and it was quite frightening.  

My son is 10 years old and I don’t think that I have to worry yet but at what point should I have that talk with him.   I share this with you my brothers because this is not the world we grew up in and I think we need to be extra diligent in educating our children.  

I am going to post this on the blog if you would like to publically comment or just replay back to me.  I am looking forward to getting some counsel from my brothers.  

Friday, August 10, 2012

Waiting on God

Waiting on GodTGIF Today God Is First Volume 1 by Os Hillman
Friday, August 10 2012

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him!" Isaiah 30:18
Have you ever noticed that God is not in a hurry? It took 40 years for Moses to receive his commission to lead the people out of Egypt. It took 17 years of preparation before Joseph was delivered from slavery and imprisonment. It took 20 years before Jacob was released from Laban's control. Abraham and Sarah were in their old age when they finally received the son of promise, Isaac. So why isn't God in a hurry? God called each of these servants to accomplish a certain task in His Kingdom, yet He was in no hurry to bring their mission into fulfillment. First, He accomplished what He wanted in them. We are often more focused on outcome than the process that He is accomplishing in our lives each day. When we experience His presence daily, one day we wake up and realize that God has done something special in and through our lives. However, the accomplishment is no longer what excites us. Instead, what excites us is knowing Him. Through those times, we become more acquainted with His love, grace, and power in our lives. When this happens, we are no longer focused on the outcome because the outcome is a result of our walk with Him. It is not the goal of our walk, but the by-product. Hence, when Joseph came to power in Egypt, he probably couldn't have cared less. He had come to a place of complete surrender so that he was not anxious about tomorrow or his circumstances. This is the lesson for us. We must wait for God's timing and embrace wherever we are in the process. When we find contentment in that place, we begin to experience God in ways we never thought possible.