Mission Focused Men for Christ

Episode Summary . Instead of hearing refreshing words of praise and appreciation from their husbands, countless wives endure each day with parched souls and sad hearts. Being starved for words of affirmation, they feel worthless, unattractive, and unappreciated. This episode examines a biblical role of husbands that you may have thought little about—our job to protect our wife’s self-esteem . Life...

Episode Summary . God wants husbands and wives to drink deeply and frequently of the refreshing waters of their partner’s sexuality. But most of us whose marriages have lasted beyond the honeymoon stage have found that sustaining romantic and sexual passion has been a lot harder than we ever thought it would be, especially because our wives are NOT wired the way WE are. This episode looks for bibl...

Episode Summary . This episode examines five biblical texts that reveal the various facets of a wife’s need for heart intimacy with her husband. 84% of wives 9indicate that their husbands have no clue how to meet this need of their hearts. For Further Prayerful Thought:  Why do you think 84% of wives say that their husbands are not meeting their need for heart intimacy with them? What do you most...

Episode Summary . This episode challenges husbands and fathers to be as devoted to bringing out the potential of those under their care as Richard Williams was, the father of Venus and Serena Williams. We take the example of Jesus' leadership of the church as prophet, priest, and king, to identify practically what we should do to help those under our care reach their full potential in Christ....

Episode Summary . The opportunities to influence our kids’ lives go by in a flash and after they are launched are rarer still. So, dads and granddads need to know how to maximize the influence we do have. This episode examines God’s two-part design of the influence we wield as spiritual leaders of our home, positional influence and relational influence. In both cases, we must overcome false worldv...

Episode Summary . Family leadership isn’t for the half-hearted. And it is not always appreciated by our followers! What is worse is that our leadership attempts can fail, disheartening us. But as Wayne Gretzky has pointed out, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” This episode examines what leadership at home looks like, so we can give it our best shot.    For Further Prayerful Thought: Wha...

Episode Summary . There are so many forces in today’s culture, our own hearts, our wife’s heart, and churches today that are pushing hard against men taking leadership in their homes and churches , that daring to lead our families is tough. It isn’t for sissies. It demands courage to overcome our uncertainty about what we are doing, a thick skin to resist peer pressure, and determination to defeat...

Episode Summary . In my view as a men’s ministry leader, one of the great tragedies of the church today is that we have failed to capture the hearts of men with the greatness of our mission. This episode focusses on just one aspect of a decision that every Christian who is listening to this podcast has made —choosing to be a follower of King Jesus. Disciples follow their masters’ example. They app...

Episode Summary . As our children and grandchildren leave their homes, we can expect them to hear the argument that they should act like adults and stop viewing the Bible’s fairy tales as anything more than morally uplifting stories like The Little Mermaid, The Lord of the Rings, or Santa Clause. Against this backdrop, we must help our children and grandchildren, before leaving home, realize that...

Episode Summary . Our culture is shaped by the interaction of various worldviews that compete for the influence to shape thinking. Ten days ago in the halls of Congress many of us saw the moral bankruptcy of a worldview that is held by many of the cultural elites, when the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn would not say that the conduct code of their universities prevents students from calling...

Episode Summary . Is anything more beautiful, spectacular, and wonderful than God’s creation of WOMAN? I think not. She is the crowning achievement of God’s creation process. She is the one for whom a husband is to die. Yet, we live in a culture that has profoundly marred the portrait of fulfilled womanhood as God designed it to be—and it is our feminine loved ones who are suffering from it. This...

Summary : At this cultural moment Christian men face the extreme risk of abandoning our calling to godly manhood, because of the cultural pressure we feel every day. This pressure not to make distinctions between men and woman or their designed roles is squeezing many Christian men and leaders into the world’s mold and resulting unfaithfulness . But in this episode we study the example of Joseph,...

Summary : As irritations, frustrations and trials crowd into our lives bringing out our bad attitudes, we are hit in the face with James’ almost impossible command, “Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:3). “Be joyful,” says James, “because when it hurts, God is building in you the Christ-like quality o...

Summary : It is hard to image anything that would please Jesus more than hearing, “I want to be just like you.” Incredibly, the Apostle, Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1:3-8 that God has graciously given us a present—his divine power to partake of his divine, holy nature. He outlines 3 specific steps by which Christians access that divined power. The last 2 episodes examined steps 1-2. This episode exa...

Summary : Against a moral backdrop much like ours, in which evil seemed ready to envelop the whole empire. Peter gave specific advice to the Christ-followers of his day . This episode examines that advice and how we can follow it in today’s world. We will see that despite being disheartened by the way Evil was winning the cultural battle between Christ’s kingdom of righteousness and the kingdom of...

Summary : Great men in the eyes of Jesus are those who fight the sinful attitudes of their hearts, self-centeredness, pride, resentment, lust, selfishness, impurity, rivalry, idolatry, greed, envy, selfish anger . They surrender in humility to God’s reclamation project of re-making them into the toughness of character that Jesus showed. They channel their masculine aggression towards overpowering...

Summary : In the last ten years there has been an explosion of confusion among adolescent children about their gender. Girls doubting their femininity are suffering. Boys uncertain about masculinity are unsure of themselves. Alarming statistics reveal that the more confused children are about their gender, the greater is their risk of suicide. What should Christian men do about this crisis? This e...

Summary : Because of the Hamas attack on Israel two weeks ago, I’ve changed the topic of today’s episode to address a battle that all Christians are called to fight— the battle to shape our culture’s worldview to conform to biblical truth , instead of letting false worldviews blind our culture to reality, because we are silent . This episode examines how Hamas’ worldview is very different from tha...

Summary :  No man wants to fail his wife or kids. Despite loud cries to the contrary in our culture, we men are assigned the position of head of our marriage, which means if we love our wives well, they will flourish. As those assigned the role of father , our concrete love for our kids is designed to prepare them to see and welcome the parallel but invisible love of God the Father. This strategic...

Summary : This episode continues our October series on the battles men fight by examining Satan’s efforts to destroy our trust in God’s character. Such confidence MATTERS to God so much that his Word says, “Without faith it is impossible to please him,” (Heb 11:6a). All meaningful love-relationships require trust. Because Satan wants to destroy our relationship with God, he constantly seeks to und...

Summary : This episode begins our October series on the battles men fight and begins with the temptation that survey’s reveal is at the top of men’s temptations—overcoming lust and if married directing their sexual desires totally towards the wife of their youth. We study David’s fall and the lessons we can take away from this biblical example. For Further Prayerful Thought :   How is the story of...

Summary : This episode raises the question, “Could it be that Satan and sin are racking up wins against us NOT because we’re NOT trying hard enough, but because we are not fighting with the right weapon ?” Christ’s agenda of righteousness will never prevail in our own hearts or over the earth through trying harder. We must defeat the kingdom of darkness for “rightness” to spread. But such victory...

Summary : On the night before he died, Jesus made the astonishing claim that he had completed the work the Father gave him to do. We wonder how Jesus could have talked about a completed work . His three-year ministry seemed all too short. For every prostitute whose heart he touched, hundreds remained untouched. For every blind man enabled to see, hundreds were still blind. Yet on that last night,...

Summary : This episode provides a biblical definition of the term kingdom of God and when that becomes clear, we will see why Jesus said that PURSUING THE KINGDOM OF GOD is the most valuable objective anyone could ever build his life around! For further prayerful thought .  Why is seeking the kingdom of God like a pearl merchant pursuing and finding a fabulous pearl?  What Scripture comes to mind...

Summary : Hall of Fame NFL stars, besides excelling at unrelenting commitment to becoming the best they can be at their position, usually have developed a high football IQ , which helps them put playing their position in context. Jesus’ job description for his followers is to seek first the KINGDOM OF GOD and his righteousness. But it is impossible to go hard to succeed at this mission without a c...