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Men are never manlier than when they are tender with their children — whether holding a baby in their arms, loving their gradeschooler, or hugging their teenager or adult children.
The realization that we have only a brief time to raise our children should give us huge motivation to make the most of it and should make Scriptural advice about fathering pulse with importance for us.
We must beware of packing our schedules by saying “yes” to things which mean “no” to our families. Now is the time to take time. There is no other! Will you do it?
List some of the attributes of your Heavenly Father, as described in the Bible. Which of these should be emulated by you as an earthly father? List specific ways each of these should be practiced in your life with your children. Then share your findings with your sons and daughters.
America’s leading psychologists and therapists estimate that only 10 percent of all men ever have any real friends.2
The decade-long research of 5,000 men and women by Michael McGill, published in 1985, corroborates this. He reports: To say that men have no intimate friends seems on the surface too harsh. . . . But the data indicates that it is not far from the truth. Even the most intimate of friendships (of which there are few) rarely approach the depth of disclosure a woman commonly has with many other women. . . . Men do not value friendship.3
Christ is our example. His ministry was centered in deep friendships with the Twelve, whom He repeatedly called “friends” (John 15:13-15), and there was also the inner circle of three with whom He formed an even deeper friendship and to whom He bared His heart.
Men, if you are married, your wife must be your most intimate friend, but to say, “my wife is my best friend” can be a cop-out.
Mutuality of soul is followed by love, as the next phrase indicates — “and he [Jonathan] loved him [David] as himself” (v. 1).
Dostoyevski had the idea when he wrote: “To love a person means to see him as God intended him to be.
“I set this down as a fact, that if all men knew what each other said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world.
“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17).
Individualism, autonomy, privatization, and isolation are culturally cachet, but deep, devoted, vulnerable friendship is not.
Such relational requests may not occur naturally to the minds of most men, but they are prayers which God delights to answer, as my own experience, and that of many other Christian men, amply testifies.
If you are a regular church attender but do no more than attend morning worship, you are depriving yourself and the church of the friendship so desperately needed by all.
Few of the truly valuable things in life just happen.
Those who have friends place importance on them.
Be liberal with honest affirmations, and you will have friends.
Listen well, and you will be pronounced a “brilliant” conversationalist! What’s more, people will discover they are important to you, which is key to any friendship.
Life is filled with small rejections — a sarcastic smile, innuendos, awkward silences, club atmospheres — so that many walk through the day with their guard up.
we must overcome our privatized hearts — for Christianity is a relationship with God and His people.
What do 1 Peter 4:9 and Hebrews 13:2 teach about friendship? How can you apply these Scriptures to your life?
This cosmic potential of the believer’s mind introduces the great scandal of today’s Church: Christians without Christian minds
he sees our generation as suffering from religious anorexia (anorexia religiosa), a loss of appetite for growth in Christ.3
as a Biblical thinker I give no quarter to myself or anyone else who rationalizes his present choices by the past.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is untrue, whatever is ignoble, whatever is wrong, whatever is impure, whatever is unlovely, whatever is unadmirable — if there is anything shoddy or unworthy of praise — do not think about these things.
a Christian mind demands conscious negation; a Christian mind is impossible without the discipline of refusal.
the disturbing truth, as studies by the secular networks as well as the Christian Broadcasting Network show, is that the viewing habits of Christians are no different than those of non-Christians! Since TV is a business, it gives its customers — the public — what they want. It is but a mirror image of us.4
It is impossible for any Christian who spends the bulk of his evenings, month after month, week upon week, day in and day out watching the major TV networks or contemporary videos to have a Christian mind.
Stop watching television. I mean that sincerely! Not watching TV will liberate so much time, it will become virtually impossible not to become a deeper person and a better Christian.
Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.
You can never have a Christian mind without reading the Scriptures regularly because you cannot be profoundly influenced by that which you do not know.
The brilliant Jewish radio talk show host Dennis Prager, a man who makes sure he is well-informed, said in a recent interview in The Door: One thing I noticed about Evangelicals is that they do not read. They do not read the Bible, they do not read the great Christian thinkers, they have never heard of Aquinas. If they’re Presbyterian, they’ve never read the founders of Presbyterianism. I do not understand that. As a Jew, that’s confusing to me. The commandment of study is so deep in Judaism that we immerse ourselves in study. God gave us a brain, aren’t we to use it in His service? When I
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many of you would do well to commit to reading two or three good books this next year.
Name at least three or four Christian books that have made a major impact on your life. Then list at least two Christian books you have been meaning to read. By what date will you read these books?
In what ways do you know you need greater discipline of mind? What are your greatest struggles in this area — perhaps sexual lust? self-pity? dwelling on past pain? pride? worry?
The second corresponding reason is that prayer bends our wills to God’s will.
The words of Scripture are not merely to be read but to be heard
Select a choice text, write it on a card, and slip it into your pocket. Pull it out in those spare moments. Murmur it. Memorize it. Pray it. Say it. Share it.
devotion is impossible if we are overloaded with guilt.
we must confess what we are, the ontological reality that we truly are sinners
as regenerated men who are making some progress in spiritual growth, it is sinfully natural to falsely suppose we are rising above our condition
Unconfessed sin makes the heavens seem like brass.
Reverence and concentration must be linked with a humble spirit which has worship as its conscious goal
As we worship we can pray or read or sing God’s Word back to Him.
it will not happen without discipline. The reason many men never have an effective devotional life is, they never plan for it.
They do not pray because they do not set aside the time.
Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to the Word of God, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.4
The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees.
We are to have a perpetual inner dialogue with God. We must always be looking up, even when driving to work or mowing the lawn.
