As I read this letter over and over I kept thinking of men.  Jesus told the church he was proud of their love, their faith, the good stuff they do, and even how they patiently endure the tough stuff life was throwing at them.  Then He hit right between the eyes.  Jesus told them that in spite of all the good stuff, He was troubled by. . .literally, “held it against them”. . .their willingness to accept and follow a false prophetess.  Jesus called this woman “Jezebel.”  Don’t know if that was her real name or a reference to one of the most vile and immoral queens Israel had ever had.  Doesn’t really matter much, either way they got the point.  She was teaching and they were following her down the road of sexual immorality.

So how does this relate to guys, me included?  We trust God, love others, do great things – even in the name of God – and patiently endure the hardships of marriage, rebellious children, layoffs, pay cuts, addictions, and a whole mess of stuff.  Yet, we give in to Satan’s lies about lust, pornography, sexual immorality, adultery, and all kinds of sexual sins.  I’ll be the first to admit that it’s tough being a godly man in today’s world.  But how can we ever be the church – God’s church – when men won’t deal with these ongoing sins?

Listen guys, we have to get over our shame, our guilt, and our pride if we ever hope to face up to these problems in our lives.  They’re real and they are tearing down our lives, our marriages, our families, our communities and having an incredibly negative impact on Jesus’ bride – the church.

Let’s start talking about these struggles.  Let’s begin encouraging and helping one another.  Let’s begin praying for one another.  Your wives deserve it!  Your children deserve it!  Your God deserves it!

Let’s stop being the church at Thyatira.  Let’s stop believing Satan’s lies.  Let’s be the men God designed and desires us to be!

Mike

It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? We want to be something we’re not, but we don’t want to change to become it, do we? We want to be more like Christ, we want to be successful, we want to be loving husbands and fathers, but we don’t want to change.

Here’s a great question for you, guys, “How do you supposed we become more like Christ in our homes, relationships, workplace, communities, and church if we don’t change our hearts and mindsets?” To be honest, I don’t have a clue.

Change – the last frontier of our lives, yet the constant in all of life. Change brings life. Change brings new and with new comes life. Your body is constantly changing – some of you would definitely agree with me – but, it’s that change that rejuvenates life. A lack of change and rejuvenation ushers in stagnation and with stagnation death – death of the heart, our passions, and the mind.

God has been changing me lately – my mind and my heart. My life got to the point that it seemed that my anger was raising it’s ugly head all the time. I haven’t had to deal with my anger and its sinful outbursts in a long time. My outbursts scare Cindy. She reminded me that every time I get angry it costs me something – money to replace or fix something, my relationship with her and others, even my relationship with God. Something needed to change and change quickly!

Through some great counsel (thanks Scott) I’ve begun to read through a book that’s been around a while, but is having a dramatic impact in and on my life. It is T.W. Hunt’s The Mind of Christ. Did you know that you can have the mind of Christ? Do you realize that to have the mind of Christ is to be in complete harmony with God and God’s desires? I want that. I want to be so in tune with God that I’m free from the bondage of sin and sinful thinking.

Did you know that to have the mind of Jesus requires change? YEP!! Make no mistake about it, this is a process. It doesn’t happen over night, though there are some biblical principles that will make an immediate impact (change) if you begin applying them to your life and your relationships. I’m working through the process now, asking God to change my heart, my relationships, my loyalties, my prejudices, my thought process and I’m seeing God in a whole new light.

I’ve also asked some men, a band of brothers – fellow warriors who knows about struggle and life change – to pray for me and hold me accountable for my anger. They are. In fact one fellow warrior asked me about it this past Sunday morning. Thanks Terry. Keep it up.

Life, the life in Christ we can all have is about change. Life changes. . .we change, but do you want change for God?

As God teaches me I will share with you.

I would ask that you pray for me and pray for Cindy. Pray that God will give me opportunities to share what He is teaching me with other men who struggle as well.

Mike

I was recently speaking with a friend of mine about girl-guy relationships. This is a guy that has grown more in his relationship with God over the last year or so, than since becoming a Christ-follower. He’s a great guy – a hard worker, smart, and rides a motorcycle.
We had been talking about purity and how God calls us to remain pure in our girl-guy relationships until the time He unites us in marriage. He struggled with this for a while – like most guys do. As we walked through God’s standard for us as single men and how it is up to us to guard that standard as the spiritual leaders in our relationships he equated his desire for sex to “Snickers Bars.” We laughed, but what a great analogy! It was his way of talking about sex in terms he could understand since he likes Snickers Bars as well.

As I thought about his struggle and his analogy, I realized many of us have our own “Snickers Bars.” Don’t we? It may not be the overwhelming desire to be sexually active in our girl-guy relationships, but it could be our pride, our desire for more toys, pornography, the demanding desire to be in charge/control, our attitudes that we cling to, or our expectations of others. . .you get the picture.

What’s your “Snickers Bar?”

I’m so proud of my friend. He came to me one night and told me how he went to his friend’s house and told her, “No more.” He walked away from his “Snickers Bar.” I’m not sure if their still friends, but I know God loved to see him walk away. He enjoyed watching my friend set the example, not matter how tough it was for him. I know it wasn’t an easy decision for him to make. The decision to put down our “Snickers Bar” is never easy. But I do know he wanted to please God and be obedient. For my friend it meant finding an alternative way of spending his time and a substitute for “Snickers Bar.” If you and I want to please God, as well, we will have to do the same. My buddy did it and I believe with all my heart that God is looking at my friend with an incredibly huge smile and a special place in his heart for him. And God has blessed him with more jobs to do in his side business.

My friend fought for his King and the King’s standard of purity in girl-guy relationships. What a warrior!

What about you? You ready to put down your “Snickers Bar” and follow God? Willing to walk away and walk to God? Are you willing to fight for the heart of your King?

I won’t be easy, but God assures us that He will grant us the grace to see us through. He will be there all the way. Won’t you make the commitment today. . .now?

Mike

So I sat down with my idea book and began flipping through the pages. I ran across some notes from messages I heard this summer. Below one of the outlines I discovered some notes I had written about a specific passage of Scripture – Matthew 14:13-21. It’s where Jesus feeds the 5,000 plus leftovers. But before He did His thing He told the disciples to feed them. When they complained all they had was some biscuits and a couple of fish He told them to bring the bread and fish to Him. It’s then He did the miraculous. Here are the notes I made about that particular passage:

• Jesus takes over when we come to the end of ourselves
• We come to the beginning of Jesus when we come to the end of ourselves (yes it’s redundant – just another way of saying the first thing)
• Stop whining about what I don’t have and start looking for/at what I do have to offer God
• God does the most amazing things when we give Him all we have
• What we see as a problem, God sees as an opportunity.

Here’s where that’s applicable to me -

• I need to stop worrying and whining about the finances I don’t have and give God the money I DO have!!

• What I see as a problem (lack of funds) God sees as an opportunity (give Him what I do have – don’t know the how or the what, but God can provide all I need and then some, eh?)

Hey guys, where are you struggling? What are you worrying about? What do you have you can give God now? Take some time and prayerfully give it to God. That’s what I’m going to do. Join me?

Mike

This morning spent some time in John 14.   That’s when one of my struggles became evident.  Verses 13 and 14 say. . .

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Let me say up front that I DO NOT believe that God is some genie who exists to fulfill our personal desires and grant our wishes.  I don’t believe in the “name it and claim it” approach to God.  I thing that our prayers should be in accordance with His will and His character.  I also know he knows my every need – even before I do.  And that He invites me to approach the throne of grace with confidence – not arrogance, mind you, but confident in knowing that God desires to hear our requests (Eph 3:12; Heb 4:16).

So here’s my struggle this morning:  How do I pray for my needs – finances, opportunities to speak, selling stuff, etc. and not sound selfish? I’ve asked God to teach me how to pray according to His will and character.  I want Him to show me how to present my needs and my heart to Him in a way that is pleasing to Him.

Maybe you can shed some light on your experiences with praying for needs.  I could definitely use some help here.

Mike

You know what I mean, for some it’s alcohol, or drugs, or gossiping, or pornography, or lust, or adultery, or over spending & credit card issues. Some of you may be struggling with exaggeration – your story always seems to become more grandiose when you tell it, or your attitude sucks and it’s a constant battle not to allow it to control you. Whatever it is, it’s a battle. And if you’re like me you feel the battle constantly raging inside of you.

I just want to encourage you in the midst of your battle. First, even guys like Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, struggled. Listen to his words found in the seventh chapter of Romans,

So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. (v. 14-25)

Do you get a sense that Paul knows exactly what it feels like to struggle in your walk with the Lord? I do. I also know that in the midst of his struggle he found a marvelous nugget of truth that we all could remember – “Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.” That’s right. Paul knew it and now you know it. Your answer lies in your relationship with Christ.

In Chapter 8 Paul tells us that in Christ we are set free from being slaves to our sinful nature. Did you get this? It’s incredible! If you have Christ as Lord of your life, you have been set free to live in the Spirit of God and not in the spirit of your sinful nature. You are no longer a salve to you sinful nature – to your struggle, but a free man in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Jesus said that if the Son has set you free, you are free indeed (John 8:36). So you are no longer slaves, but free men. Free to live in the power and the Spirit of God, the one who set you free!

Second, you don’t have to let that struggle defeat you. I have to admit that I lose to my struggle at times. My struggle, you ask? Lust and pornography. I flirted with pornography while I was living the life of an ungodly man. Let me tell you something, that stuff stays with you for years. It’s one battle that will not let go. Just when I think I’ve got it conquered, something happens and the temptations come at me like a tsunami. So I struggle and battle and sometimes scratch and claw my way through the enemy. I don’t always win as anyone with a life-struggle knows.
But I do know this – God is in control and He has given me the Spirit of love, of power, and self discipline (2 Timothy 1:7). I don’t have to let my struggles rule over me. They don’t have to have control and conquer me. Everyday I wake up I know that God is in control and the power He gave Jesus is also mine to overcome, to win, to be a victor. And through my faith in Jesus I can overcome. I can live a life of victory. (1 John 5:4-5)

Each morning when our feet hit the floor we should be giving our battle to the Lord. Asking Him to fill us with His Spirit, His power, His love, His desire for us to be more than conquerors. We need to stop being prepared for the battle and suit up the first thing every morning. The very morning you forget to prepare will be the morning the enemy will win.

So go live the victorious life. Don’t give in to your struggles. I know the battle can be tough, but you don’t fight alone.

Your comrade in arms,

Mike