Excel Still More

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! We want things fast and want them to happen on a big time scale. We want total transformation, massive amazing change, and big payouts. All of that is in reach, but the work involved to get there is rarely as instant, sizable or flashy. It turns out, being wise small is the way to big things. Something you do every day for a...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! I really hope you enjoy this series! Please let me know what you think. Feel free to share your own ideas, or just express how valuable you think this series might be. Your feedback will determine how quickly we get all 6 fit in! Please remember - application will be focused on the home, but not limited to it. At it's co...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! I am so stoked to share this with you today. Bible connection are on my favorite things list. Special thanks to Michelle Stevens for sending me a short clip from Myron Golden. I checked out a bunch of his stuff and found two Genesis stories that connect in an interesting way. Both of them relate in this way: count your blessi...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Okay, I'm calling this my favorite thing I've learned in 2023. This simple outlook on relationships and three step, easily repeatable process... I love it. And I re-recorded this episode a week later just to share my testimonials! I gave a quick early shout out to Jacob Hudgins for his book House Rules . I highly re...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! The question of the episode is you asking yourself: "Who Am I?" - I encourage you to spend a little time on that this week. Find an answer that sits in the center of everything else about you and drives it all.  Below I have included the lyrics for "To Not Worship You" by Mercy Me.  As you listen to them t...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Where do you draw the line when it comes to sinful behavior? Is it your goal to do everything everyone else gets to do so long as you don't take that last step? Sometimes we strive for this in a very weird form of American Christianity. We want almost all of what our culture has to offer, with just a few things off limit...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! We live in a "yes" world. There is so much to do, and as mostly middle class Americans, we are in a position to say yes to so many things. And for the most part, we seem to try to. After all, we don't want to miss out! No, I don't mean sinful things. But sometimes it feels like we are trying to indulge in...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! The 4 Disciplines of Execution : Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals Excel Still More Journal Okay, my new friend Rich Howe, from Richmond TX, has turned me on to a great new book. It is designed for business and company leaders, but it includes timeless principles. I see application for the individual, the family, the chur...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Read this! 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentle spirit be known to all people. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! You gotta love Nick Saban. He says it like it is and asks you what you are gonna do about it! This straight talk can make us uncomfortable but it can also call us to needed change. Today, we look at a quote from him, one he'd actually recently heard from and NFL coach and is using with his guys. I hope you will find it u...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Question: Do you want to live to be 100? I feel like if you and I were chatting you might not give a resounding yes. We've seen a lot of disease and decay and death, and the idea of being here then might invoke a picture of sorrow and pain. But did you know there are people in their 90's and older still living rewar...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! The ESM Podcast has largely been built for individual application and growth. For one thing, that's a whole lot easier to talk about and accomplish in comparison to collective behavior. You can change you. But changing others... that's a whole lot tougher. Changing the direction of an entire family, church, or cultu...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Sadly, I was in my mid-20's before I first learned about the story of Nehemiah. It was taught to me beforehand, and I REALLY could have used it in may teenage years, but it wasn't until I was in full time ministry work that this story took root in my heart. It is a story of passion, hope, hard work, belief in God, c...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Seven Social Sins demands that we match up social responsibility with internal character development. It is worth the effort! To help you follow along today, let me include all FOUR of the lists we will feature today: Seven Things God Hates: Pride, Lying, Murder, Wicked Plans, Rushing to Evil, Lying about Others, Creating Str...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! As our youth prepare to head back to school, let's talk a bit about standards and rules that they will face. If you are a student, are you the kind of person that puts your best effort into excelling under rules, or do they no apply to you? Should they be changed to accommodate you? Let's talk about what happens whe...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Alert - This is not an episode about weight, diet or exercise! Instead this is a snippet of a quote from a powerful illustration given by a professor to his students. The weight in question was that of a glass of water he was holding. His question: "how heavy is this glass of water?" The answer is surprise and needf...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! So today's title is a bit misleading. At least, we've got some things to cover before we get there. Below I have posted a poem titled "Let Them." It's about letting people go when they don't want to stay. This is extremely difficult for me, so this poem is helpful. But it does require some Gospel...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Tension is: Often Challenging and Difficult Outside Comfort Zone or Settled Law Demanding Humility and Openness to Learn Carries Benefit in the Wrestling and Working Required Presents a Choice: 1) ignore.  2) Reject.  3) Give in.  4) Study. Challenges you to seek Balance when it is Easier to Fall to one side. Unhealthy Tensio...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Please take a moment and check out the Balancing the Christian Life Conference . It goes live as an online experience on July 27th through 29th. If you are interested in the Excel Still More 3 Month Journa l mentioned in today's episode, you can order through the link provided.  I hope you'll go on this journey with...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Spirit and Truth. Truth and Spirit. Two words Jesus linked together in proclaiming who will be a worshipper of God. But they can be so hard to balance. Spirit is personal, emotional, in some ways subjective. Truth is the opposite. It is objective, universal, the will and authority of God. Jesus is asking us to give them equal...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! How do you see Jesus? We are called to cast our eyes on Him. We are told to see Him and we are given descriptions of Him. For me, for a long time, most of my images of Jesus had Him on the throne at times, but often looked back into His ministry on the earth. Maybe Jesus healing people. Maybe Jesus on the cross. Those are gre...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! You are going to love this episode! Yes, you get a tip on how to get let go from jury duty, but don't stop there. More importantly, you will hear the beautiful testimony of young ladies who have turned to faith. These Oklahoma Sooners are leading with their love for Christ, and they have the baptisms to prove it!  Behind...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! The devil will try anything to keep us from honoring our Lord. In centuries past he could keep people in the dark in terms of knowledge. Maybe keep people from getting a Bible, or keeping the preacher from making it to town. Maybe people had questions but couldn't get answers or help.  That is not the case anymore, at le...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Today I get to share some things that have continued to have deep impact in my life. These two ideas are separate, but equally powerful. I hope to weave them together for you so you can implement each by implementing both together. Firstly, as we've talked about in different ways over the years, you have to see the value...

Reach Out: Please include your email and I will get back to you. Thanks! Thank you for your feedback and support after last week's episode! Talking about sexual abuse was hard. And from the large amount of feedback I got, I know it is hard or people to think back on the abuse of their past. But I pray we can bring awareness and activism in terms of fulfilling the kingdom mission to protect th...