Monthly Archives: May 2009

I want to express my apologies to my faithful readers because of my slow writing here lately.  We have been pretty busy and I have put writing to the back burner.  I see the light at the end of the tunnel and am hoping to be back on schedule with writing again next week.

This week we were out of town for a couple of days.  We went to pick up Josh from Gainesville, Texas.  He has been on vacation with my parents for the last 2 weeks.  It is great to have him back.  He helped me unload the car and will have to take out the garbage this evening:)  Well besides that, I am glad he is home.  Josh is my partner and helps me tremendously with things around the church.  When he is gone, it is like missing my right hand man!

While we were away we spent a couple of nights with Sonya’s parents.  It was great to see them and her dad seems to be doing better.  I tackled a project for my mother-in-law and as usual it took me two days to complete a two hour project.  I used to get mad at this kind of thing, but I am encouraged that at least I am consistent.

Hannah made my night.  She was wearing her Snow White outfit, because she is a princess.  So as she was going around the house she would address me as Prince, instead of Dad.  “Prince, will you get me___?”, “Prince, what are you doing?”  Is it any wonder I spoil her?  (For those of you who question her addressing me as Prince, she believes I am really a prince.  She is not referring to the 80’s rock star)

Anything by Fred Stoeker is a good book.  In fact, multiplied thousands have been changed by his Every Man’s Battle Series of books.  Hero is no different, except for the fact that it is co-written with his son, Jasen, who has conquered the young man’s battle.  He has dedicated his life to living purely and gives a clarion call for every other man to do the same.  What Hero reveals is that the battle over sin and temptation can be won and that young men can live purely from the start.  Hero takes you on a journey with Jason and shows how he has lived holy in an unholy world. 

Hero is a fitting title and is written as a challenge to be his woman’s hero through living righteous lives.

Here is a summary of the book

You already know it’s not easy being a single man in this culture today. But it is easy to be overwhelmed, to feel helpless and hopeless about living by God’s high standards for singles. It’s easy to cave in to the pressures of this sex-soaked world and accept defeat—blaming the media, the culture, even girlfriends who don’t know how tough it can be.

But many men have read books like Every Young Man’s Battle and Tactics and have committed themselves to stand strong and pure in the power of God, and to go on the offensive against the onslaught of negative stereotypes. Some have suffered. Some have fallen. But many have experienced victory—and you can be among them.

What makes those committed men so desirable to women? Be Her Hero is their motto. From best-selling author Fred Stoeker, along with his son Jasen, come the straightforward insight and real-life examples you’re looking for to help you take personal purity to its logical conclusion. Here’s straight truth with irrefutable evidence of what makes an ultimate hero to women who long for men of faith—men who stand by their convictions and make their world a safer and better place.

Are you ready to accept the challenge?

Author Bios:

Fred Stoeker is a best-selling author of several books, including Every Young Man’s Battle and Tactics, the president of Living True Ministries, and a popular conference speaker who challenges men to become sexually pure, to reconnect in true intimate relationship with their wives, and to train their sons to become godly men. A graduate of Stanford University, Fred lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his wife, Brenda, and their children.

Mike Yorkey, a writer living in Encinitas, California, has collaborated with Fred Stoeker in all his books for the Every Man’s series.

Jasen Stoeker is a popular conference speaker who challenges young men to be heroic in their relationships with women and to be a Christian, rather than just seem like one. Jasen is a graduate of Iowa State University with degrees in Computer Engineering and Computer Science and now lives in Minneapolis, MN, with his wife Rose.

You can pick up a copy here.

We have been doing some remodeling around the church, which is always fun.  The carpet was laid in my office Friday so I worked Friday evening and Saturday laying the trim.  I am by no means a carpenter.  I repeat, I am by no means carpenter.  I can put down trim and “make” it fit.  When I work by myself, no one will ever know how many missed cuts I have made, nor will they notice (hopefully) how bad I really am at this woodworking thing.  I have been reminded on occasion that I should stick to preaching. 

Nonetheless, I laid trim in my office.  I am not sure if the walls are not square or if I do not know how to cut, but when I get to a corner, it doesn’t always match up good.  This is why the Bible says that Caulk will cover a multitude of sins.  Maybe that is the Danny Cheney version.  Caulk covers the imperfections.  It hides the bad cuts.  It is alot like grace.

In our Christian lives, we often make bad cuts or have imperfections that need a good cover-up.  We mess up, we do things wrong, we make mistakes and it is awesome that God is a God of grace.  The Bible says, “Where sin does abound, grace does much more abound.”  Grace is the cover-up for our shortcomings. 

Now, we should always try to do better and do things the right way but when we fail, Grace is there to cover us.  I John 2 tells us that God has given us His word so that we might not sin, but if we do sin, there is an Advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous.  What an awesome thought!  We are to do our best to live right, but if we fall short, there is one who forgives us.

From Kevin DeYoung, Just Do Something, pp. 50-51:

Passivity is a plague among Christians. It’s not just that we don’t do anything; it’s that we feel spiritual for not doing anything. We imagine that our inactivity is patience and sensitivity to God’s leading. At times it may be; but it’s also quite possible we are just lazy. When we hype-spiritualize our decisions, we can veer off into impulsive and foolish decisions. But more likely as Christians we fall into endless patterns of vacillation, indecision, and regret. No doubt, selfish ambition is a danger for Christians, but so is complacency, listless wandering, and passivity that pawns itself off as spirituality. Perhaps our inactivity is not so much waiting on God as it is an expression of the fear of man, the love of the praise of man, and disbelief in God’s providence.

HT: Between Worlds Blog

"It is often ignorantly and frivolously charged against Christian men that it is selfish in them to seek heaven and glory for their own souls; but no man who is truly seeking salvation will be moved by that accusation. When men really begin to seek their salvation, and to turn their faces to the glory of heaven, then it is that all selfish and ignoble desires receive their death-blow. It is not selfish, surely, for the diseased to seek healing, or the hungry food, or the prodigal his father’s house. So far from this being a sign that the heart is selfish, there is no surer sign that it is being sanctified."

Alexander Whyte, An Exposition on the Shorter Catechism, page 138.

HT: Ray Ortlund

Sonya and Hannah were helping me work around the church yesterday, or should I say, Sonya was helping me and Hannah was doing her own thing.  We went to check on Hannah, who had escaped to the nursery, only to notice that she had climbed into a baby toy.  Now understand that Hannah would never play in one of these when she was smaller.  When she is too big for it, however, she thinks it is a cool toy.  She was reverting back to her early childhood.

How often are we the same way in our lives?  We seem to grow until we decide that we would like to revert back to spiritual childhood.  We should be more mature but we react or act in ways that are from our early days.  Most all of us have had times when we have found it easier to be spiritually immature than to take the road of maturity.  We see this in our relationship with God, with others and with this world.

There are spiritual maturity tests that we can use to evaluate our lives.  Am I growing in the Word and Prayer?  Am I faithful to the church and ministry?  Do I respond to others with love and compassion rather than anger and frustration?  Are the fruit of the Spirit evident in my life?  Is my speech worthy of being used in a conversation with Christ?  Are the things I am involved in the result of small compromises or would they glorify God?,

So many times, the longer we are saved the more revert back to the old days.  The newness of our salvation wears off.  We begin slipping in our Bible reading and prayer, then soon our path leads us away from Him instead of to Him.  Are you maturing or have you been taking one step forward and two steps back?

I have been reading through the book of Joshua and am intrigued by the story of Israel’s crossing the Jordan river.  God told them to cross the Jordan.  He commanded them to set the priests and the Ark of the Covenant at the front and when the priests stepped in the water, it would roll back.  The priests obeyed and God responded by parting the Jordan as He had done with the Red Sea.

After Israel crossed, Joshua commanded the heads of the 12 tribes to get a stone and stack them in the midst of the Jordan, to be a monument of God’s miraculous provision.  Since the Jordan overran its banks for 2 months of the year, the Israelites could only see  the monument when the water was low or when the rain was withheld.  The water was at a lower level for ten months of the year, which allowed this monument to be visible.

The intention of this monument was to remind Israel of God’s power over nature and over their enemies.  This was in place so the fathers of Israel could show the monument to their children and they could re-tell the story of God’s provision. 

In our lives  there are things that God has done for us that we should build some monuments for.  Salvation, healing, miracles, being filled with the Spirit and many other things are momentous occasions in our lives.  It is those monuments that we build that allow us to tell others of God and His power.  It is these things that we look to and remember when the rain seems to stop and drought enters our lives.  The monuments become visible and we can cling to those things to help get us through until the rainy season.

Are there any monuments you can build in your lives?  Or is there one of these that you are clinging to while you are going through the drought?

Today on our day off we drove to Gentry, Arkansas to the Wilderness Drive-thru Safari.  It was a great surprise!  I have been to a few of these types of safaris that brag about all these exotic animals, but I usually leave disappointed.  Not so with this one.  It was the best Safari I have seen.  It had hundreds of exotic animals that could be seen through a four mile drive thru on their property that sprawled through the beautiful country of Northwest Arkansas.  The animals were out in the open where you could actually see them (unlike the zoo).  The park had a petting zoo that had many types of animals including, turkeys, kangaroos, zebras and prairie dogs.

There was a pony ride for Hannah.  The first time we went to the pony ride it was only $3.00.  As we were walking through one of the workers invited us to help ourselves to ride the pony (horse) as much as we wanted at no charge.  We had a picnic while there.  We brought our own food, but their concession stand was very reasonably priced.  By far, going to this safari allowed us to have fun as a family without breaking the bank.  It was well worth every penny.

You can check out the safari here.

Sunday afternoon, we drove to Devil’s Den State Park.  Don’t really care for the name but you could not question the beauty of our Creator there.  Before leaving for Devil’s Den, we took an afternoon nap.  When Hannah woke up she said, “I want to go climb a mount.”  So we took a trip to climb a mount.

It was a beautiful day with perfect weather. 

We had a good day yesterday.  The crowd was a little down but we still broke 100.  It seems that God is doing great things at RFA.  The worship went well and you could sense the presence of the Lord.  We talked about being more fruitful in our Christian lives.  Fruitful in our character (fruits of the spirit), fruitful in good works, and fruitful in our witnessing.  The response was tremendous at the altar time.  It appears that as believers, we all want to be more fruitful and make a difference for the Kingdom of God.

While Sonya and I were at District Council this week, my parents kept Josh and Hannah.  My dad has been looking for a new pistol so he took the kids to the armory in Springdale.  Josh said they had thousands of guns to look at and there was a lot of people shopping there.  At some point during the shopping trip, one of the workers gave Hannah a balloon.  A balloon in a gun shop, mind you. (I guess they were trying the kid friendly gun shop approach). Now, let me remind you that a gun shop carries ammunition and weapons; things that make loud noises when they fire.  Do you see where I am headed with this?

As my parents are walking around with Hannah, she steps on the balloon and it pops.  POW!  Josh said at once everyone jerked around, startled, to look because they thought somebody had shot a gun in the store.  Leave it to Hannah, that’s my girl:)

We drove through Petit Jean State Park on our way home from Little Rock.  It was a little out of the way but it was well worth the drive.  I forgot our camera but I was able to use my Blackberry camera.  Not the best but good enough.  The beauty was incredible.

Cedar Creek Falls

Cedar Creek Falls

Cedar Creek

Turtle Rock

Turtle Rock

Rock House Cave

Rock House Cave

Last night at our District Council service, General Superintendent George O. Wood made a profound statement about relationships.  “It is easier to burn a bridge than to build one.”

This is applicable to all of our relationships.  We have a decision to make as to how we will handle conflict and hurt.  Will we burn the bridge, forsake the relationship and cut that person off from our life?  Or will we build a bridge to that person, make amends and try to forgive, mend and heal?

Too often, we take the easy road.  Burn the bridge and make sure that we never get hurt again.  Although that never truly heals the hurt.  It only suppresses it and “makes us feel better” that we have cut them off.  The hard road is to face the pain and the person who caused it or at least resolve in our heart that we are going to extend the hand and be willing to meet in the middle.

Many relationships end because we fail to think it is important enough to save.  We often walk away feeling like life is better off without that person in our life.  We must, however, see things the way God would want.  Jesus reached out to Judas, even though his heart was bent to betray Christ.  Jesus ministered to Peter, even after Peter betrayed Him three times.  Christ, loved us and died for us, while we were yet sinners.  We were the enemies of God but He built a bridge in the form of the Cross to reconcile our relationship.

Who is it in your life that we need to build a bridge to?

We have been kicking back a little today before District Council service tonight.  I am reading Foxe’s Book of Martyrs again this week.  I am simply in awe of the people who have laid down their lives for Christ.  Their martyrdom was  only a shadow compared to their life.

I was moved by the recounting of the life of James the Just, the first pastor of the church in Jerusalem.  The book says about James, “He used to enter into the temple alone, and there fall upon his knees, ask remission for the people; so that his knees, by oft kneeling (for worshipping God, and craving forgiveness for the people), lost the sense of feeling, being benumbed and hardened like the knees of a camel.  He was for the excellency of his just life, called ‘The just’ and, ‘The safeguard of the people’.”

What a man!  To have that as a testimony still alive 1900 years later speaks of a life that was lived for the glory of God.  I am convicted of such a life.  How often am I found on my knees interceding for the forgiveness of man?  Could I be called a safeguard of the people?  What about you?