Dads, you don't need a manual, rather, you need Immanuel

Dad's, Men of Faith, Countrymen (those of us who are adopted sons of God)....I may have referenced an old TV show called the Greatest American Hero.  It had two men that were walking thru life together, one was a government employee while the other found the suit.  They both lost the manual that explained how to use the suit to be a superhero, so they had to have trials and tribulations along the way to use the suit.  Some times I feel like we try to do that in our spiritual lives along with our everyday work lives.  That is, we are trying to figure out the secret to life and to be the best dad, the best husband, the best men that the world has.  The trying is clearly altruistic, but the way we get there is flawed.  What I mean to say is that we have to change our trajectory.  We have to re-set our sights in order to be the marksmen that God calls us to be.  WE have to set our targets on the One whom all blessings flow - Jesus Christ.Dads, we don't need a manual, rather, we need Immanuel.  Matthew 1:22-23, (ESV) "²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ²³ “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,     and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us)."  For those of us that profess Jesus Christ as Lord, then we have Immanuel - God is with us!  His Holy Spirit is in us!  What more could we ask for.  He gave us his Word, The Bible.  If we set our sights on Him and we focus on His words for our lives then we can reclaim that which God gives us - his storehouse of blessings and love beyond belief.

This afternoon I had coffee with a great friend of mine, who is also an Elder with me at our church.  A lot of times we just share and talk about life and its pings and pangs along the way.  He holds me accountable (along with a few others in my life).  I like that.  Today, he told me that he was worried about me last week and that he was waiting to ask me what was going on.  I love that.  I love that he noticed something about me and wasn't going to let me go at it alone.  That is why God calls us to go 2x2 in ministry.  Not to do this alone, as Lance so eloquently put it in this past post.  God has a plan for us.  A plan not to harm us, but to prosper us.  Please note that I am not talking about riches and wealth in worldly terms (as some might do), rather, I am talking about the abundant life that he promises to those who love and obey him.

I think a lot of problems that we, as Christians have, is that we forget Immanuel and try to make up our own manual.  Thereby making our lives and our agenda our gods (small "g").  We need to give up these scrawny manuals and give in to God's Immanuel for each and every one of our lives.

Where can you start:

1.  Read his word EVERYDAY (commit to it today)

2. Join a bible believing, Holy Spirit filled Church and Serve

3. Get involved in a men's group and/or Mini-Church

4.  Give up your manual and accept God's Immanuel

5.  _______________________  (what are some of your places to start and work through?)

Blessings,

Dante

A bored man in the house is a very dangerous thing...

Are you bored?  Does your life have purpose?  Are you being a good steward with your time, talent and treasures?  Or do you find yourself bored with Life, Work and your Existence?As I continue to process and reflect on the recent ActLikeMen conference that they had in Indianapolis, IN,  one statement that was made by one of Speakers was, "A bored man at home is a very dangerous thing."  This is true on so many levels that I decided to do some searching through Scripture on this:  2 Timothy 2:22  ESV “So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.”  2 Timothy 2:15  ESV “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

Some Causes of Boredom:

1) Over stimulated (television, computers, social media, travel-clubs, activities that take us away from fellowship and community with God)

2) Avoidance - (we disconnect and avoid being committed to a relationship, to a job and to friends)

3) Under Committed (we do not follow through with our relationships with 1) God 2) Our Spouse 3) Our Children 4) Our Church 5) Our careers 6) Our neighbors)

4) Too Busy

5) Lack of Conviction

6) No Contentment

7) No identity

When I think about this statement I came to the realization that I am a father of three young children ranging from 6 to 10 years of age.  As an active man, I find myself being very active in work, church and community (between being a husband, father, elder, men's ministry leader, friend, partner so many more facets in my life).  I used to feel really guilty about being tired and feeling like I cannot keep up with the daily jaunts of this life, however, at the conference, I find that it is good for a man (spiritual leader) to be the tired.  That means that we are doing our job as long as we can:  1) Put God first 2) We read his Word daily 3) We pray 4) we have accountability 5) We engage our family 6) We continue to pursue  our  wives and children.  Does this mean that we always get these priorities straight?  What if we are just beginning this journey to turn it around?

Do not be discouraged no matter what.  Your identity is no longer in yourself (if you profess the name of the Lord Jesus), rather, you are a son of God.  We are all adopted and engrafted into his family.  Do not buy the lies of society.  Read and learn and memorize the word of God.  Our hope is not in the things of this world.  Our hope is in our God.  So if you read this and you find yourself bored then take action.  Get off the couch and stop just being (settling), instead realize that God has a purpose for each of us.

STARTING POINT:

1) Check your attitude at the door (we are not here to serve ourselves and our wants and our treasure, we are hear to use of gifts of time, talent and treasure to honor God and to serve Jesus)

2) Change your attitude

• Say goodbye to the ideology that you can't
• Say goodbye to the ideology that you are too tired
• Say hello to the word "yes" with your wife and kids
• Say hello to spending more and more time with your wife and kids instead of doing what you want to do
• Say hello to your second shift (serve your wife and family - be the spiritual leader that God calls us to be)

3) Live each day like it is your last

4) Be thankful for the gifts that God has given us as men (borrowed from the move The Ultimate Gift)

• Gift of Work
• Gift of Money
• Gift of Friends
• Gift of Learning
• Gift of Problems
• Gift of Family
• Gift of Laughter
• Gift of Dreams
• Gift of Giving
• Gift of Gratitude
• Gift of a day
• Gift of Love

5) Be passionate

• About God
• About Jesus
• About The Spirit
• About your wife
• About your kids
• About your church
• About your work
• About your friends
• About your neighbors
• About your community

6) Persevere

• James 1 (ESV) Greeting 1 James, a servant^[a] of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.

  Testing of Your Faith ² Count it all joy, my brothers,^[b] when you meet trials of various kinds, ³ for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. ⁴ And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

  ⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

  ⁹ Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, ¹⁰ and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass^[c] he will pass away. ¹¹ For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits.

  ¹² Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. ¹³ Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴ But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ¹⁵ Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

  ¹⁶ Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. ¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.^{[d] 18} Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

7) Live by these words:

• Ecclesiastes 9:10 (ESV) ¹⁰ Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might,^[a]for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going."  
• Colossians 3:17 (ESV) ¹⁷ And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

8) Finish Well - live life so that when you die you will hear our Savior say, "well done thou good and faith servant!"

What are some of your thoughts on this?

Let us know,

D

An unguarded strength is a double weakness...

There are things that I really like about men's conferences, leadership conferences, and so on.  Things that give us fresh insight and/or things that we want to do different or augment in our lives.  Things that we are going to change.  And if we are all honest, for those of us that go to these conferences, we find ourselves for the first week (few weeks, months or slightly thereafter) doing these things that we say we are going to do and THEN life steps back in and we lose our focus and our way.  Whether we are too busy at work or too busy at home or too busy at church or just plain too busy in all jaunts of life, we just set back into our old ways.  Our old self nature - it's just too easy, like sin in our lives.For some of us, though, things are different.  Something connected our spirit to our hearts and minds.  Something poked a chord and or a nerve in our lives and we realized that, "yes I have been lax", and/or, "yes, I need to change the way that I do that."  This past weekend was like that for me.  Greg Laurie spoke on Friday night and used this phrase, "an unguarded strength is a double weakness."  So often in life, if I reflect and look back on my journal(s), I can be brutally honest and say that this does happen to me, more so than not if I really want to be honest.  This doesn't make me a bad dad or poor husband or whatever conclusion society could draw, rather, it makes me ineffective as a spiritual leader.   It makes me neutralized as dad and as an effective husband.

Before you condemn me reading this post, realize that I am condemning myself.   At the ActLikeMen conference Matt Chandler said something very poignant in that when we get home from our days jobs (whatever shift you work) that we still have shift 2 and shift 3 to handle and to engage and to finish.  That is, to serve our wives and our children if God has blessed us with them.  We need to start acting like men.  Now before I totally throw myself under the bus, I want to say that there are things that my wife will say that I do really good:  1) I help clean (kitchen, etc.,) 2) I help with Laundry, 3) I help with the bedtime and homework and the like, BUT if I am really honest I can do so much more for my family.  For instance,  I could do the following:

Set the Pace - Honestly I am blown away at the pace at which culture/society tells us to travel.  Let's be honest, if work was given full access to our lives some of us could work 70, 80 and over 100 hours and still have "to-do lists".  Travel Sports (don't get me going on this one) Hobbies and Park District activities and for some families (if they have time for other things) - Youth Group.  I can Set the Pace by being intentional on how I pray, how I read God's word and apply it to my daily life and I can create a healthy balance for my family between chores, homework and fun times with Mom & Dad & Friends and Family.

Time Management - The Hebrew day (back before electricity) was 6am to 6pm and then goodnight.  If we are modern family and our kids go to school then your morning looks like this:  Mom and Dad wakes up, Kids wake up, Eat Breakfast, Change clothes, wash up (teeth brushed), Drive to School, Kids at school all day and mom and dad work from home (or at work) and so on.  There are only 24 hours in a day (and God likes us to be orderly and good stewards with our time, talent and treasure), that being said, we only have so much time in a day.  Teach our kids the gift of time.  I can do this by being an example not a sloth at home.

Give them Stewardship - I have to teach my family the value of God's time, talent and treasure that he has given me through His promise of giving us His Spirit.  That is, each one of us that has professed the name of Jesus Christ as Savior has been given fruit of the Spirit (Spiritual Gifts) to honor God.  I have to set the priorities that are so important in this order:  God, Family, Church, Work, Friends and Other.   I have to put God first in everything and as Spiritual leader I have to put my wife and family next.  The more that my family sees Jesus in me and how I serve with the gifts that he has entrusted in me, the better I serve my wife and kids, the better they inherit this stewardship and the better my lot will go at the Judgement Seat of Christ (goal = to hear our Redeemer say, "well done thou good and faithful servant.").  Teach them the value of money (to tithe, to save and how much to spend.  Live it, let them know that you practice what you preach - this is true accountability.

Be Bold - Act like men in showing your kids the strength of Jesus when you serve them.  No matter what life brings me (through trial and tribulation) show them your love and grace and mercy.  Show them that it is okay to hurt, to cry and to struggle, but show them also your unwavering faith.  Be Bold in love.  Be bold in truth and Be bold in serving.

Arm Them - The word of God is bold and effective and able to separate bone from marrow.  It is a double-edge sword.  It is truth.  Own the truth, know the word and work on memory with your children.  The more that they own the more that they will carry with them into adulthood.  Teach them to pray.  Teach them to pray for the Armor of God (Read Ephesians 6).

What are some of your lists?

As for me, this past weekend taught me an extremely valuable lesson, not only to guard my 6 (with brothers that I call men of Faith and Lance) also to doubly guard my strengths.  I can do this by daily reading of the Bible, Praying continually.  Seeking that quiet time with God (listening for his voice).  To have accountability in my life (not just from my wife, but from brothers who will be brutal and honest in love).

Blessings,

D

Unpacking the Actlikemen Conference, part 1 of 3 (or more)

This past weekend 12,600 + volunteers went to Indianapolis, Indiana to attend the third of three Act Like Men Conferences (2 in the US and 1 in Canada).  Lance and I met down there on Friday night and his son blessed us with his presence as well.  I am so thankful for all the men that accompanied me this past weekend.   I am thankful for Lance and his son serving this weekend as we sponsored the event.  I am so thankful for the men of God that brought the truth to us in an incredibly short amount of time with such a large plethora of God's words and teaching to unpack during the conference.  My head is still reeling from this event.  Actually, Lance and I several years ago talked about a men's event that we wanted to do, called "Man Up".  I think these men stole our idea or at least a lot of LegacyDad material (JUST KIDDING).  These men speak truth and these men speak from the same authority that we speak on - the Holy Bible.  The Spirit within us and having brothers and our wives holding us accountable.All of this being said, a few things that really struck home for me (personally):

• A man, who is bored and with a lot of energy at home is VERY DANGEROUS
• An unguarded strength is a double weakness
• We all do not need a manual, rather IMMANUEL
• Un-repented sin in our lives is like a lion that we keep hidden (an average lion can move 100 yards in 3 seconds) so be careful trying to entertain sin and trying to worship God

As a husband, a dad, a full-time worker, an Elder and a leader of men's ministry - I have a lot on my plate.  I continually check myself at the door of humility and try to remember my priorities:  God, Family, Church, Work, Friends and Community.  I don't always get this order right and I often fail even when I do.  However, I have brothers in my life who speak brutal truth in my life.  I have brothers (in Christ) who love me and do not judge me.  I have brothers who encourage, comfort and urge me to live a life worthy of God.  I call these brothers of mine - Men of Faith (which is also the name of our Men's Group at church).  I walked away from this confident feeling both happy and sad at the same time.  For the sad, I realized just how many at this conference do not have what we have in Men of Faith.  I felt sad because so many men (even in our church) miss the blessing of accountability and confession in men's groups.  I also felt sad in realizing just how many men need this but do not take the time to put this very thing into practice in their lives.

In 1 Thessalonians 2:11-12 (NIV) we read, "¹¹ For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, ¹² encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory."  This is so important not only in ministry but in everyday life.  Often we find this sort of thing counter-cultural in that the world tells us to believe the "Lone Wolf McQuaid" way of life in which we can do this on our own.  This is exactly what the devil and his minions want from us - to be isolated and alone wallowing in our own sinful lives.  If we took it to God's way then we would turn to Galatians 6 and read the following, "6 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. ² Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. ³ If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. ⁴ Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, ⁵ for each one should carry their own load. ⁶ Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor. ⁷ Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. ⁸ Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. ⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."

An unguarded strength is a double weakness - this has so many avenues attached to it - being overwhelmed at home, at work, at church, in the community, with our friends.....a simple way to put this is to say by just living life we can forget to be in the word daily.  To pray continuously.  To have accountability and to confess our sins to others.  We are not telling you to confess to a priest or to have a man forgive us, quite the contrary.  Rather, by confessing out loud, then we no longer have that sin in the darkness like a lion in our dark closet.  We bring it into the light (to our brothers) and we give others permission to hold us accountable to and to take a proverbial "2x4" to us when we are not walking the right path (in love not in anger).  And by bringing this to the light, we have repentance to God the Father through his son Jesus Christ giving honor to the Triune God who will be pleased with our repentance.  When I am tired, fatigued, worked over by work, co-workers, family and friends (so much to do with so little time - come on - we all have those weeks) I find myself being un-guarded.  As I looked at my journal when I got home, I could see the pattern of being ill-prepared in spiritual warfare and falling/failing to daily jaunts of temptation and the like.   Sometimes, when this occurs, my strengths become a double weakness - this was a very good lesson for me to hear this past weekend.

There is so much more to say.  The next few posts will focus on:

• The hidden lion in our lives
• A bored man in my house
• What's your excuse, man up...

Looking forward to hearing from you?  Who else was there?  Let Lance and I know what you want to hear...email me here:

Blessings,

Dante

Are You All In?

While taking my daughter to school, I caught a morning radio show in which the hosts were talking about a recent news story of a wife who had a hidden savings account with over $800,000 in it.  The issue was that she never told her husband about it.

What was further disconcerting was that most of the female co-hosts and many of women who called in thought this was not only acceptable but smart practice.  When it comes to marriage, are we holding back or are we all in?

Don't get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with separate checking/saving/investing accounts and some of these women inherited money which is why it was separate in the first place.  But the overall tone of this piece was that we should hide things from our spouse to protect us "just in case."  Plus, many of the married women agreed with this idea that they needed a secret escape clause and money in case things did not work out.  Now, this could be done by both men and women, it was simply women used in this particular show.

The host tried to illustrate the point that it was not about the money but the fact that the women were keeping secrets from their spouse thus creating division and possibly mistrust in the marriage.  To this the women said that due to the current divorce rates,  they needed to not show all their cards and keep things from their husbands just in case things didn't work out.

In my opinion, this is one of the fundamental problems with societal attitudes toward marriage.  I look at my own marriage as a "burn the ships" and go "all in" type of arrangement between my wife, me and God.  There is no holding back or an escape clause because human fallibility will naturally use that as an excuse.  It's like going into a plan and expecting to fail, you will naturally hold back.  Instead, I see my role and the health of my marriage as a "succeed at all costs" arrangement and therefore have no fall back plan.  I have to give all of myself and accept the risk of being hurt, that's true intimacy.

The attitudes displayed in this radio show were not "til death do us part" but more like "til something better comes along" or things don't work out.  Maybe I'm just crazy or old fashion but I cannot understand this thought process when it comes to marriage.  You are basically setting yourself up for mistrust, suspicions and intimacy issues with your spouse.

Maybe the basic problem is that the secular culture sees marriage as a business contract and not holy matrimony?

I appreciate your thoughts and opinions?

Teach me your way, O Lord

Psalm 86:11-12

English Standard Version (ESV)

¹¹ Teach me your way, O Lord,     that I may walk in your truth;     unite my heart to fear your name. ¹² I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,     and I will glorify your name forever.

Identity Crisis

Recently, I had the privelege to teach our high school students in our youth group ministry.  I was asked to teach on the subject (question) of why do we need the church.  The youth Pastor played a poignant video prior to my speaking that was an interview of various students that had said why the church was irrelevant and why they were turned off by church.  The video, in my opinion, raised some really good and unfortunate honest opinions on some church members that are misguided in their relational ministries (note:  my opinion).  That being said, I began with a game (candy being the prize) and went right into various Scriptures:  1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12:5, Hebrews 10:24-25 and so on.Before this speaking engagement, I was going over my notes and timing myself for the youth pastor and scheduling.  As I was praying and reflecting I was struck by the fact that we are called (as the body of Christ) to love one another.  The thing that really struck my core is that some of us have an identity crisis, that is, that we do not love ourselves so how can we be expected to love others (encourage, comfort and urge)?  Thus, the identity crisis,  which is why my opinion is why we have problems of loving one another (because some of us cannot love ourselves).  I do not want you to take this as narcissistic or put "myself" before God's Kingdom, actually, quite the contrary.

Here is my position, we are no longer are "old-self".  We, those who profess Jesus Christ, are a new creation.  Thereby, we are now sons and daughters of God.  When we realize this fact, then we can have  a healthy identity of who we are and then we can allow the Holy Spirit to grow us into who He wants and not what we once were.  2 Corinthians 5:17  (ESV) ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.^[a]The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."  God has intended for his church to be his bride.  God has plans for us, plans to be his disciples.  He gave us the Church so that even the gates of hell could not prevail against it.  If the body is acting in the way that Jesus intended, then that is a very beautiful thing to behold and to be part of.  It is a very powerful force driven by the Holy Spirit.  Did you catch that, we are no longer ourselves (in our pain and anguish of our old sinful self) - we are now his Sons and Daughters.  We are engrafted into his family because of the love of the Father!

When the body is working together for the purposes of God's Kingdom (reaching the disconnected and growing the connected) it is such a thing of beauty.  It is powerful and it is effective in preaching and teaching God's love story - He came down, he bore our sin to death on a cross, he rose again and he now sits at the right hand of God.  Why? Because he loves us.  He loves his bride.  Why do we need community?  Why do we always ask our parents (when we were young) why?  Because they really do know better when they are showing Agape love.  As a Christian (a Christ-follower, a disciple of Christ) we can be rest-assured that Jesus loves us, that he died for us and that because of his work on the cross, we are FORGIVEN of past, present and future sins - IT IS FINISHED.  Jesus said that for a reason.  He knew that he was faithful and obedient to his Father's will.  Jesus called us to do the same for Him.  To be his disciple means more than just being a pew sitter, it means for us to move from pew sitter to heavy hitter!  Jesus gave us the Church, so we can have community with the Saints to help us carry our burdens to do His will!

Any questions?  Please let us know!

Dante

What Not To Say To Your Wife

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpFD-kgQxnI]