MEN OF GOD OR gOD OF MEN.

In these days
We live in
we live in the days b
of hero worship of men of God
but wait is it.

Men of God or Men of man
Who draws so much accolades
From fellow mortals
Sharing the glory of God
Who has called them.

Bequeathing the glory due to God
To themselves alone
From the introduction
To the titles atached to their names
Men of God or man of God.

Alas you we say is
A sign of respect
But where is humility in all of these
God's own Son in His days
How was He introduce.

Let's go back far as in the beginning
The early church and the Holy men of God
Upon which are use by the Holy Spirit
To introduce the Jesus Christ and his disciples
Nothing like flits of titles attached to their names.

But alas what do you we see in churches today
Before a man we come up to preach at the podium
You will see how the moderator will be hyping and hyping
The same pastor who wants to minister hyping in the name
Of celebrating the grace of God upon such a one.

Is this really Christianity
How profane has these gone
Peter, John, Paul and host of all others
Are seeing attached to their name with just Apostles
But today what do will see?

MEN MADE BOYS

To all the men out there
Who walk tirelessly and effortlessly
To make sure they held down
The home front comes rain sunshine
Hot water who turns men into boys

Who makes sure
They go the distance
Taking the mile to transform
And shaping the future of societies
For the betterment of mankind

Men who dare the impossible
Beats the odds stand up for the right
Fought to the shore of the victory line
In making sure victoria reaches home
Touching down the line of duty

Men made boys
Out of good characters
With honest report
But at home and in the public eyes
Succeeding not just out there but at home

As home is where honor begins
As charity begins at home and ends out there
Creating boys who grew out to become
Nobleman with bearing the badge of honor
Not boys who grew up and becomes animals in human form

AN URGENT NEED OF MEN

Of a truth the days we live in
Is so dishearten moment
As each day a lot is happening
The fall and rise of great men
Is a thing of questioning
 
How did we get here?
Where did we get wrong?
To who are we going to tell?
To where should we run to?
Because the world is so deep in corruption
 
Corruption of all kinds
Corruption of mind and body
With unshaded dealings by men
Nothing is new again under the sun
As we all march from modernity
 
Calling evil good and worst fair
While the elders seat back
And watch the young go astray
As we loose our young ones in their prime
All in the name of quest for riches
 
As some men of God
Becomes as the one who died for the world
They were called to serve
Nourish with the Word
Forgetting the purpose of their ministry
 
Chasing after riches
What the belle we eat
Each moment passes by
We need men whom is blameless unfaultless
An urgent need of men
 
Not mere men
But men whose got
A clean hands and a pure heart
Who never soiled their
Hands in shady practices
Whose heart is pure
Purged by the Blood of Christ
 
Not a man of the world
But a man of the Spirit
Not a man control by the World
But a man control by God Himself
An urgent need for men
 
In this last days
We need men of God
Who will prepare His church
For heaven eternity
Eschewing evil living an holy life
Pursuing after righteousness

MAN UP

Today we need men

With the heart of a warrior

Men who will run to catch up with the flag

Christ carries ahead of us

Men won’t turn back

We need men who stand up

And take responsibility for their role as men

It’s time to rethink masculinity

Because man is an endanger species

Man up

When men lose

Women and children lose too

The home is a natural place to start

Men have a choice

Either feel inadequate or get a lot of more creative

Men have walked away from family and responsibility

We need men in the church to set up

Inside the church I find that godly fathers are endangered species

It seems the church has surrendered to the times

Man Up

We need men to man up

It’s time to call men to a higher level of responsibility

We need the generation of men who don’t look to cooperate offices

As a measure of their success rather they look into the lives

Of their wife and children

We desperately need men

Who find significance in faith, family and hard work

We need men who regardless of their station in life

Are stepping up to their God given roles

We need men to match our mountains
#Courage #Men #leadership #FamilyLife

WHAT IT TAKES TO FINISH STRONG?

What does it mean to finish strong?
It means that you will come to the end
Of your life with a strong and close
Relationship to Christ
Finishing strong

It means that unless God
Has taken your wife ahead of you
You will be married to the same woman
That you are today
What it takes to finish strong

It means that you are a man
Who is in the Scripture and living the Scripture
It means that you are a man
Who has fought some battles for kingdom
And has the scars to prove it

To finish strong means
That you are leaving your children
And grandchildren the priceless
Heritage of a godly life
To do that take vision

Especially if you’re in your twenties or thirties
Few men have the vision at that age
To look forty years into the future and
Think about how they want to finish
What it takes to finish strong

It takes finish to do it
When you’re in your forties and fifties
For that’s when so many guys get sloppy spiritually
And put it all on cruise control
Oh they’ll finish all right but they won’t finish strong

It takes vision in your sixties and seventies
To realize that those little grandchildren
Are the leaders of a future generation
And it takes vision to spend time with them
Instead of cursing the country six month out of the year

A YOUNG MAN CHALLENGE

A young man who was having a significant
Ministry in a small English village many years ago
People were coming from miles around
To hear him teach the Scriptures
In his midtwenties he had a voracious appetite

For not only teaching the scriptures
But knowing them as well
He was making an impact in the village
And he surrounding area
Until the charges were made

A young woman came forward and claimed
That he had tried to force himself upon her sexually
The world spread like wildfire across the countryside
He was finished the sentiments of the people
Were with the young girl

His reputation was in shambles
And it was all a lie it simply never happened
The young man struggled deeply with the betrayal
Of the young man whom he had legitimately tried to help
But she had turned on him and was in the process
Of ruining his ministry for life

He thought he would never recover
How could he ever minister again
Anywhere with such charges against him
Bitterness just about overwhelmed him
The betrayal was too much

He couldn’t bear it and he couldn’t undo it
But with God’s help he refused to allow that bitterness
To take root in his heart
God enabled him to conquer the bitterness
Just as Joseph had conquered it

The falsely accused young man
Thought that he would never again be used by God
But there are millions of people
Who can vouch for the fact that Oswald Chambers
Was greatly used of God before it was all over

Oswald Chambers struggled
With betrayal and bitterness and finished strong
Joseph struggled with betrayal and bitterness
But he finished strong a young man challenge
Finishing strong

Perhaps you are struggling with betrayal and bitterness
You’re currently in good company, aren’t you?
For you have the same God that they trusted in
And if you will let Him
He will give you the same perspective
That he gave to both of them
You too will finish strong

Take the lance of the Word of God
And drive through it the very heart
Of that bitterness pin that thing to the ground
And get on with the race
The sooner you get on with it
The sooner you will discover
The blessings that God has for you

Trust me…
They are beyond anything you could ever
Ask, dream or imagine
And when you finally run into them
They’ll take your breath away…just ask Joseph

YOU STRIP DOWN

You remember John Colter?
He was stripped of everything
But in spite of that he still finished strong
I’ve got a question for you
Was Colter really stripped of everything

The answer is NO!
Colter was stripped of his clothes but not his courage
Colter was stripped of his weapons but not of his will
Colter was stripped of his provisions but not his purpose
Colter was stripped of his comforts but not his composure

That’s he reminds me of Joseph
Joseph was stripped of his coat but not his character
Joseph was stripped of his family but not his future
Joseph was stripped of his position but not of his purity
Joseph was stripped of his accomplishments but not of his attitude

No wonder Joseph finished strong
John Colter really does remind me of Joseph
But the more I look at Joseph
The more he reminds me of Jesus
Joseph and Jesus had a lot in common

Joseph was rejected by his brothers, so was Jesus
Joseph was loved by his father, so was Jesus
Joseph was victorious over temptation, so was Jesus
Joseph was taken into custody because of a false witness so was Jesus
Joseph suffered for doing what was right, so did Jesus
Joseph was promoted from prison to rule the nation, Jesus was
Promoted from prison of death to rule the nations

Jesus finished strong
Some guys may be thinking
Of course He finished strong He’s God
That’s true He is God and you would expect
God to finish strong but you don’t have to be God to finish strong

You just have to depend on God
That’s actually what Jesus did when he was on earth
And once again Joseph and Jesus have something in common
Whom are you depending on
You can still finish strong no matter the lousy start

LOUSY START, STRONG FINISH

Some of you deep down inside your hearts
Think that you have already disqualified
Yourself from finishing strong
Maybe you’ve communicate adultery
And left your wife for some other woman

Maybe you’ve neglected your kids
To the point that they don’t even
Want to talk you maybe you’re reading
This in a prison cell and you’re honest
Enough to admit that you deserve to be there

Or maybe you came to Christ later in life
And simply feel that you’ve wasted too many years
And lost too much ground in other words
You think that you’ve already messed up your life
So badly that you have no shot at ever finishing strong

If that’s what you’re thinking
Than hang in there with me
We learnt a lot of good stuff in Sunday school
Maybe you did too I learnt about Daniel
In the lions’ den also about the Hebrew kids

They never told me about Manasseh
Manasseh was a man Sunday school teachers
Seems to avoid frankly he’s not the kind guy
You want the kids to know about
That’s probably why his name never came up

Manasseh fits in with guys like
Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler
Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin and Saddam Hussein
I mean this guys are bad news real bad news
If you crossed Manasseh you paid big time
Lousy start strong finishing

This guy came out of a godly home
With an ungodly heatred for God
In Manasseh we see a man who ran
What may have been the wickedest, bloodiest
And rebellion race a man could ever run

But much later in life
Manasseh changed direction by 180 degrees
And amazingly he finished strong
Now to you my friend you would have
A lousy start but you can finish strong at the end

It does…it really does
If it doesn’t we’re all out of business
I don’t care who you are or what you have done
Or how evil you been
If God could forgive Manasseh He can forgive you
There is still redemption for the soul undone
x

UZZIAH’S ROOTS

You remember King David
And you probably remember his son Solomon
When Solomon died, the nation of Israel
Split into two kingdoms they had a civil war
As America did in the 1800s

They ended up with a northern kingdom
Called Israel and a southern kingdom
Called Judah Uzziah was the tenth guy on the throne
In Judah after Solomon His father had been
King for six years and he elevated 

His teenage son to serve with him

Uzziah had a long race and he was great
Out of the blocks he had a fine start at
His business of manhood and kinghood
Scripture had the record that he did
All that was right in the sight of God

Here’s a young man who had a heart for God
Early on in life He sought God
He wanted a relationship with God
He talked to the Lord and did his best
To live a life pleasing to the Lord

We all know that teenage years are
Difficult years because of incredibly
Intense peer pressure as teenage kids
We are pressured and encourage
To do what everybody else is doing
Even if it violates the moral we learned at home

But young Uzziah hung in there
He got off on the right foot and had his
Priorities set correctly from day one
He was a very fortunate young man
Today he would have been a leader

In church high school group
He would have been sharing his faith
He would have been involved in discipleship
Uzziah was excited and energized by the God
Of his father, what incredible potential 

This teenage possessed!

Quick Questions for you…
Do you remember guys in your high school
Who seemed to have limitless potentials?
Where were those guys by your ten-year reunion?
I’ve talked to guys who came back from twenty years
Reunions just shaking their heads
But something else surprised me too

A few of the biggest nerds in the class
Who couldn’t seem to relate to anybody
Are millionaires now
Uzziah accomplished a great deal
Enough for two or three lifetimes

He began to spend more time
And attention on the external rather
Than the eternal his heart was lifted
He began to gave his relationship
With God lower and lower priority

He had been marvelously helped
To become all he had become and do
All he had done but he began to forjet
Just who helped him an emptiness began
To fall across his life..he lost it all forgotten his roots

ARE THERE ANY OTHER WIVES IN YOUR LIFE?

It’s amazing how many Christian guys
Have more than one wife
Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t
Unfortunately it happens all the time

It’s not common to meet a Christian man
Who is polygamous his first wife is Sarah
His second wife is pornography
His third soft porn movies when he’s traveling
And his fourth is calling sexually explicit 900 numbers

We don’t think of those activities
As other wives but that’s what they are
Kings would collect wives like toys
And it’s still happening thousand years later
Are there any other wives in your life?

You see, David couldn’t buy a pornography magazine
Or watch late night, soft porn movie on HBO or showtime
So in order to get some sexual kicks he would marry another wife
That was David’s centerfold today you don’t have to marry
Another woman to get illicit trills

These other women are waiting
In full colour magazine, in videos and on cable
You can even download them off internet
So once I pose the question
Are you a polygamist?

Maybe you’ve never thought
That pornography makes you
A many-wived man but it does
And there’s one more thing about these other wives
Just like David’s multiple wives

These wives of the 1990s also bear children
If you marry the other wife of pornography
She will bear you a child by the name of Shame
If you marry the other wife of HBO soft porn movies
She will bear you the child of Guilt
If you marry the other wife of prostitution
She will bear you the child of Humiliation

If you don’t believe that then take a hard look
At the disgraced evangelist of the ‘80s
My friend you don’t need another wife
And you don’t need any more children
At least not those kinds of children
But if you don’t put away these other wives now
Then you should know that you are on the exact
Course that both Titanic and David charted

Remember…
Sin will take you farther than you wanted to go
Sin will keep you longer than you wanted to stay
Sin will cost you more than you wanted to pay

STAY AWAY…FROM OTHER WOMEN

Keep your distance from other women
I’m not saying that you become rude to women
Or stand-offish I’m not saying that you gain
A reputation for been discourteous
Disrespectful, cold, or abrupt

What I am saying is that we keep
An apporpirate distance in our relationship
With the women with whom we work and associate
You don’t need to be weird or act strange
You don’t need to make anyone uncomfortable

But both the women that you work with
And your wife will intuitively know
Your behavior and actions that here
Is a man who is clean and pure in relationships
Will all women here’s a man willing to go the extra mile
In commitment to his wife

We must keep our distance emotionally
We must keep our distance physically
And if we do that we’ll be just fine
One of the reasons the vast majority
Of guys don’t finish strong can be found right here

Why don’t they finish strong?
Because the enemy takes them out
Satan’s all-time Numero Uno
Time proven tactics for snaring men
And keeping them from finish strong

Is sexual immorality
And the statics prove it
Sexual temptation is the number one issues
In the lives of most men and I think it’s primary
Way that the enemy picks off Christian men

If you want to finish strong
There is one non-negotiable trait
That you must embrace in your life
Regarding sexual temptation
And that trait is gut level honest

TWENTY FOUR STABILIZING NAILS

Twenty four characteristics of a godly man
I like to think of these as twenty four stabilizing nails
That you can hammer into the character of your life

A man of knowledge…A man moved by faith
A man fired by love…A man like God
A man careful about the worship of God
A man who serves God, not men
A man who prizes Christ…A man who weeps
A man who loves the Word
A man how has the Spirit of God residing in him
A man of humility…A man of prayer
A man of sincerity…A heavenly man
A zealous man…A patient man
A thankful man…A man who loves the saints
A man who does not indulge himself in any sin
A man who is good in his relationships
A man who does spiritual things in a spiritual manner
A man thoroughly trained in religion
A man who walks with God
A man who strives to be 

An instrument for making others godly

Guys who finish strong are stayed on Jehovah
And guys who stayed on Jehovah 

Consistently do four things
They stay in…the Scripture
They stay close…to a friend
They stay away…from other women
They stay alert…to the tactics of the enemy

There is no time to be sedatives
This is the time to stay alert!
Too many men who have started well
Have failed to finish strong
History is strewn with the wreckage of their lives

God gave us men a time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands
Men whom the lust of office does not kill
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy
Men who posses opinions and a will
Men who love honor men who will not lie

A PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT

Often said over time and time again
That life begins at forty
You can slice that any way you want
But it always come out middle age
Like it or not forty-five is in the middle of aging

It’s an appropriate exercise for a man
Who finds himself at middle age or mid-life
To evaluate how he’s doing now
That he’s reached halfway point of journey
Not only is it good to evaluate the years
You’ve already lived but is very wise to consider
How you want to spend the rest of your life

A mission statement is a document a person
Writes that sums up his or her personal philosophy or creed
A personal mission statement should
Articulate the values that represent a person
Here is someone mission statement

Succeed at home first
Never compromise with honesty
Hear both sides before judging
Obtain the counsel of others
Defend those who are absent
Develop one new proficiency a year
Plan tomorrow’s work today
Maintain a positive attitude
Keep a sense of humor
Be orderly in person and in work
Listen twice as much as you speak
Concentrate all abilities and efforts 

On task at hand not worrying

Here is another person mission statement
Just in three words – Don’t Screw Up –
Men screw up all the time 

But this person goal is not to screw up
I don’t want to screw up my marriage
I don’t want to screw up my relationship with my kids
I don’t want to screw up my integrity

One day in the future there will be a funeral
My funeral after the funeral they’ll get in their black limos
And head for the cemetery 

Where a brief graveside service will be conducted
Then everyone will head to the house 

And have some food as they are at home 

Have some food the worker will dump dirt
On the casket it is common to have words on the marker

Have you ever given any thought to what you’d like
To have inscribed on your grave marker? Wait!
Let me show you what some would like 

To have on his own marker

And here it is
Okoh C Paul 
Born: 1984 
Died: _______
He Didn’t Screw Up

THE AMBUSHES

Who said anything about ambushes?
The bottom line in determining
How a man will finish centers
Around getting through the ambushes
The ambushes

To finish strong means that you
Survived the ambushes
Getting through the ambushes
Is what separate men from the boys
The ambushes

And the guys who get through
The ambushes are generally the guys
Who anticipate the ambushes
We can expect to encounter at least
Three major ambushes 

As we attempt to finish strong

They are
The ambush of another woman
The ambush of money
The ambush of neglected family
Think through some men in the Scripture
Who should have finished strong but couldn’t

The enemy has been 

Using these three ambushes
To keep God’s men from finishing strong
For thousands of years 

Let’s take a little closer to each one 

The ambush of another woman 

Risk is also the critical issue
In determining whether or not 

You will survive the ambush 

Of another woman

The ambush of money
For the love of money 

Is the root of all evil
Remember Ananias and Sapphire 

Had such love for money 

They both had what could

Be called a premature finish
The ambush of neglected family
A minister once asked a question
Whats your greatest fear 

About going into ministry
The said minister did not hesitate 

To answer and here his is reply
Being successful in ministry 

And losing my family

FOUR DIFFERENT KINDS OF FINISHES

The first is Cut Off Early
Means they were taken out of leadership
Assassinations, killed in battle
Prophetically denounced, overthrown
Typical examples of those cut off early include

Abimelech, Samson, Absalom, Ahab
Josiah, John the Baptist and James
Some of these men where good leaders
But most of them were bad
Do you personally know people
Who have been cut off early? If you do
There is a tragic story that explains their finish

The second is Finished Poorly
Means they were going down hill
In the latter part of their lives
This might mean in term of personal relationship with God
Or in terms of competency…or both
Some who…are typical examples of finish poorly

Include Gideon, Eli, Saul and Solomon
In other words these guys were barely to crawl
Across the finish line either that
Or they were carried
This is what we want to avoid, gentlemen

The Third is Finished so-so
Mean they did not do what they could have done
Or should have done
They did not complete what God had for them to do
This might mean that there were some negative ramifications
From their past which lingered on even though

They were walking with God personally
At the end of their live some example of finishing so-so
Would be David, Jehosophat and Hezekiah
These were pretty good guys 

After all David was a man after God’s heart

The Fourth is Finished Well
Means that they were walking with God personally
At the end of their lives they were strong
In their faith and close to the Lord
Men who finished well Abraham, Job, Joseph
Joshua, Caleb, Samuel, Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel
John, Paul and Peter this is where we want to be

Now here’s the big-time question
All of these leaders were gifted
And all had very impressive strength
So how come they all didn’t finish strong?
The answer is this 

They all didn’t finish strong
Because they didn’t survive
The ambushes…

WHERE IS THE FINISH LINE?

By the way where is the finish line?
Well it difficult for each one of us
The finish line that I have in mind
Is when we go be with the Lord
You might have forty years 

Before you die or six months

That’s the interesting thing about this race
No one knows where the finish line is
And that makes this race just much tougher
Runners will tell you that they want to know
Where the finish line is

It doesn’t matter if they’re running
One hundred yards or a marathon
They must know where the finish line is 

They block out everything else and concentrate 
And then they get that finish line in sight
Fully and completely on the tape

That concentration on the finish line 
That keeping their eye on the mark
That’s what enable them to blot out
The pain and exhaustion and finish strong
Where is the finish line?

Those men have their backs to the finish line
So how can they possibly finish strong?
How do they pace themselves
And how do they know when to sprint?
If they can’t see the finish line and focus upon it
Then how in the world 

Can they row an effective race?

We don’t finish strong
By focusing on the finish line
Because we don’t know where
The finish line is
We finish strong by fixing our eyes on Jesus

MY ONLY CAUTION

Don’t paint it in terms of some
He-man effort in the flesh
Because we all know that won’t cut it
Strong men fall 

Weak men find their strength in another don’t fall
How can I make sure that I’m the one in ten?

My only caution
We won’t be the one in ten
Because of our own strength or wisdom
Or courage or perseverance or any other human quality
If we finish strong it will only be because

We have tapped into ultimate strength
Limitless wisdom, the fount of courage
The sources of perseverance
He will get us across the finish line
The very gates of hell cannot make us stumble

Unless we choose to remove ourselves
From his protection and power
I’d like to see a little hope and encouragement
Here and that we can indeed be one
Of the one in ten guys who finish strong

And that’s because
His divine power
Has given us everything we need
For life and godliness
My only caution

Men who don’t hit the finish line strong
Have chosen to remove themselves
From the Lord’s protection and power
That concentration on the finish line
That keeping their eye on the mark
That’s what enables them to blot out
The pain and exhaustion and finish strong

FINISHING STRONG IS TOUGH

It is not for everyone
Because it is not easy
I admit to you that it is hard
But there is another way
That is much harder

The Scriptures say that
The way of the transgressor is hard
If you are interested in what
Eugene Peterson call
A long obedience in the same direction

If you are interested in being
The one out of ten
If you are interested in being
The man who is the exception to the rule
Read on

Quietly frankly if you’ve gotten this far
And you’re still reading then you are exception
Too many guys are willing to do just enough to get by
Too many guys are ready to bail out of the race
At the first twinge of sideache

Is your marriage on rough water right now? Don’t quit
Is that secretary who is craving more of your attention
Starting to look more and more attractive? Don’t even think about it
Have you gone so long without apparently seeing God
Say yes to one of your prayers that you’re about ready to chuck
This Christian thing that would be a serious mistake
The enemy would like to sucker us into thinking
That the easy way is the best way but it never is
I have been giving a tremendous amount of thought
A punch in the stomach but there is also a challenge
And I think most men likes challenge

Will I be the one in ten?
How can I make sure
That I’m the one in ten?
Except you trust in God that when it can happen
And you will see is no longer tough to finish strong

DAVID: A TITANIC MISTAKE

The plight of the Titanic may be
The most famous shipwreck in all history
The sin of David with Bathsheba
May be the most famous moral shipwreck
In all of history

And they have something extremely
Significant in common
On April 10, 1912 the ship Titanic embarked
On her median cruise from Southampton to New York
A titanic mistake

The ship was so carefully structured and engineered
That it was billed as the ship that God couldn’t sink
She was four city blocks long and carried the most
Up-to-date safety devices she featured a French sidewalk
Café and luxurious suites but she carried only
Twenty lifeboats for the 2200 passengers on board

But the Titanic shipwrecked days
Before she ever hits the iceberg
How could the greatest ocean linear
Ever built shipwreck hours before she hit the iceberg
The Titanic sealed her own fate because she failed
To heed the repeated warnings of imminent danger

In actually the Titanic shipwrecked before
It ever hit that iceberg and so did David
David shipwrecked, morally years before
He ever saw Bathsheba stepping into the bathwater
David a Titanic mistake

David set the course for his own shipwreck
The moment he married a second wife
Then he married a third by that time he was on a roll
And he married a fourth followed by a fifth
By the time he was thirty he had six wives

David was a polygamist
God’s plan for David was that
He be a one-woman kind of man
But David wanted to be a many-wives kind of man
And by doing so he engineered his own personal shipwreck
Just as titanic failed to heed the six warnings
So David failed to head at least six warnings
Every time he considered taking additional wife
I firmly believe the Holy Spirit would send a telegram
To his conscience and adjust as the Titanic ignored the warning
So did David… David a Titanic mistake

Do you know the greatest tragedy of both shipwrecks?
Both of them could have been easily avoided
But they weren’t and the world would continue
To speak of both for centuries to come
David a Titanic mistake