Radical Abandonment

Men and brethren,
Greetings in Jesus name! Something to consider for today and to encourage those in your influence to think on as well! We need a great awakening in American Christendom today!

Radical Abandonment: commanded by Christ!
"Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple."

What? Give up everything you have, carry a cross--daily, and hate or despise your own family? This sounds a whole lot different than--"Admit, Believe, Confess, and pray this prayer after me."

What has become of biblical Christianity? What have we abandoned for Christ really?

"Follow Me"--contained radical implications in the lives of the disciples. Jesus was calling them to abandon their comforts, all that was familiar to them and natural for them. He makes the same call for all that follow Him--even today, here in this land of convenience and prosperity! This must be how we come to Jesus and also how we must follow after Him. Grace is a free gift, but it comes at a big price! Jesus was willing to pay the price for us! Are we willing to pay the price for being His true disciple? Well?

To God be the Glory!
s. everett


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Is it humanism?

Beloved, are you saved? Yes! Of course you say! But are you sure? I'm not speaking of "assurance"of salvation in Christ. I'm asking if "you" are assured that you have come to Christ with the right intentions! Did you come to Christ because you truly understand the enormity of your sins before a holy God or did you just feel guilty and don't want to go to "hell" in the end? The first is contrition, the second is humanism! One is about the glorious righteousness of God and the other is about saving yourself! Think about it for a while! God's worth it! The end of all being is the glory of God not the happiness of man!


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The Bride

Men and brothers,
Greetings to you all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! May He fill your hearts with joy unspeakable!
Today I was thinking about my bride and all that she is to me! Normally I post blogs on family and the man's role as a father and don't usually take time to consider--in writing--my second half! She is half of me by the way and I most assuredly am incomplete with out her! So, today I would like to dedicate this blog to my beautiful bride Angie!
Brothers, have you considered your bride today? How often do you remind yourself that the two of you are "one flesh" and that you are to be "as a loving savior" to her? When was the last time you washed her in the Word or prayed a blessing over her? Do you deal with her " according to knowledge" as instructed by the Word? How often do you praise her for giving her life to her children and the keeping of your home? The Bible informs us that they are the weaker vessel and need special consideration. How often do we give it to them?
Do you realize how important it is for us to encourage our brides? Men they need our love! They need us to remember to put our love to "work" in a real way. A way that says you are so grateful to God for giving you a helpmeet.
Also, maybe your thinking that your bride doesn't really live up to all the right godly attributes and it would be hard to be so loving! Well, your right it will be hard. Because you'll need to really look hard at yourself and the fruit of your life in order to make her a godly wife! That's right, you start being a loving savior to your wife and dying to yourself and she will have no problem treating you like a king!
Finally, I covet your prayers in this area for my life! Please pray for me--my bride really needs you to! I have often failed in this matter in the past but desperately want to succeed! You see, our relationships with our brides are a living witness and testimony of Christ's relationship with His bride--the Church! So when I fail here, I fail to be a good witness for Christ! Let's consider today how we can be a wonderful savior to our brides no matter what the circumstances, cause Christ is wonderful to us regardless of our circumstances! "Oh , to be like Thee!"

To God be the Glory!
PapaSam

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The Father's Goal

Men and brothers,
I would like to ask a question. What are our goals as fathers and leaders of our homes? I am going to share something I read with you. I hope to encourage and challenge you to take a hard look at yourself and the goals you have for your family!

"Today’s fathers are desperately trying to meet all the demands of their jobs and take care of many other obligations and pressures. Yet, while they are busy with their work, a disaster is taking place. Bright sons and daughters who have great potential to be used by God are being drawn into the traps of the world—trends of wrong music, wrong friends, wrong goals, and wrong decisions. Wives and mothers are frustrated with lack of purpose in their families and disillusioned by continual disappointments."

This clip really sobered me up! I started to look at my life from a different angle/perspective. Do I do these things? That was my first question! Am I so busy trying to stay on "top" of everything that the "bottom" is falling out? Oh sure, I can say that I do all this for my family and their well being--but what is really going to give them a "well-being"?
What really is our main goal? Do we have an eternal vision for our sons and daughters? Are we working diligently at being a loving savior to our wives? What is the fruit of our lives?
Think about this:
I want my children to be mighty for God but do I take the responsibility to personally train and disciple them in the Word? Or I am hoping Sunday school and youth group did a good enough job--even though scripture repeatedly tells me it's my job!

There is only one way we can be sure they will love God: to give our lives to the task of biblical training--of them and ourselves. To utterly exhaust ourselves in effort to love and disciple them. To place our focus completely on our families and not our hobbies, sports, television, etc.
Brothers let's let God know we care enough about His ways and love to submitt our whole lives to bringing up the next generation of godly soldiers--by the way, scripture instructs us men to do this even as grandfathers. Men, let's look at our lives and repent and change in the areas we need to and get on task for the sake of the Church and our families! To God be all the Glory!

PapaSam
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The Church Today? Where are we?

Men and brethren,
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Forgive my absence on the blog scene! I wanted to wish all of you peace and love in Christ Jesus. I also wanted to share something with you from the mission field. Please take time to read it and consider what this brother is saying and let it challenge and charge our hearts for the Kingdom of Christ! To all who may read this: please print this out for the men in your family or have them come over to the screen and read this blog post. I would be grateful and the Church needs us men to read it and "Rise Up O' Men of God!" Lord bless you and keep you all. Article follows...

Sam

I just got back from China after 2 weeks working with the underground House Churches. It was so powerful and life changing for them and for me. When I listened to their testimonies and the things they have been through I spent many days crying tears of joy, sorrow and love for them. Simple Christianity is so different from what we think is Christianity,...

I went to teach them but I learned more from them than I taught. We have to stop treating Christ and Christianity like a game or a nice hobby. An add on to our lives, and we need to start being sold out! Not sold out to a system of worship, theology or our favorite distinctive or version of the Bible or organization but sold out to Christ. We have missed the boat in America (probably for the last 50years, maybe longer). We must stop playing games and die to ourselves and live for, to, and like Christ. These were the most genuine, loving and courageous Christians, I have ever been around.

When I asked the leaders what their churches needed most they said "more love." I was shocked to hear this,.. When I asked them how they could get more love they said they needed "to suffer more" that would cause their love to grow. This was not spoken flippantly or intellectually but with great sincerity by men who had spent 2, 5, and 8 years in prison for their faith. One had had two family members tortured to death by the authorities in prison. I felt like the puniest and weakest pretend, Christian on the earth, when I stood next to these people. One of the women had also been imprisoned and tortured in North Korea for taking the gospel to Korea from China.

I was left with this strong and powerful conclusion,... We must take Christ seriously and stop playing religious games! If Christ in us “ is the hope of glory” then Christ shinning out of us is the only proof of faith. It is not what we know, think or say that matters, it is what we live,… They said they learned a lot from me but I learned even more from these peasant farmers, who work two jobs to support their families and still minister every day and in some cases lead six or seven house churches with 150 believers under them. These men and women who are not afraid to die or be imprisoned for Christ. They consider suffering for Christ the most beautiful evidence of their faith.

Living the life of Christ is only words to us but it is who and what they are! Die to self and live, only for Christ! They also asked us to pray for them and for me to come back soon.

God keeps showing me over and over that we have to get back to the basics of a pure and simple faith. Of living the life of Christ no matter what the cost!

In Christ service, Carl

To God be the Glory!
Papa Sam

Hi honey

I hacked your blog as I sit here bored.

I love you
Your wife
Angie


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Feeding Time!

Men and brothers,
Greetings in the name of our Lord Christ Jesus. I pray that all is well with you all and that you are drawing closer to God each day.
I am sorry it has been a while since I last posted anything. Time is of the essence, as many of you know, and I have not had enough time to do all that needs to be done or all I want to get done!
I wanted to ask about your feeding time? Do you have regular times of feeding? Do you ever go without feeding yourself? I ask because the Lord has dealt with me in this area and I feel led to share it with you men.
I have a condition where if I don't eat regularly I will get sick. I get really bad headaches and become very irritable. My blood sugar gets to a very low level and if I eat sugar or sweets my body rejects it--or doesn't know what to do with it. This means I must eat about every 4 hours or less. I also take supplements. This, at times, is very inconvient. It becomes very frustrating. Well, recently I heard a Brother teaching on nourishing your soul. Towards the end of his teaching he made a statement about feeding our bodies but hardly evering feeding our souls. He stated that if we feed our souls as many times as we do our bodies think of the blessing. Wow, this really struck home for me. I started to think about putting this into practice and realized how much I would be reading God's living Word. Think about it for just a second! The Word of God would be such an intricate part of our lives. We might just be transformed and renewed by it. (Rms. 12:2). We might have "real" wisdom to make choices that aren't selfish but that actually glorify God all the time. We might have a "real" answer for the hope that lies within us. Or maybe, just maybe we will be able to have "real" victory over strongholds and lust!

What do you say brothers? Are you up for a challenge? I challenge us all to feed our souls with God's Word everytime we feed our bodies and let's just see what "will" happen. Maybe our hearts and families will be revivied for the Kingdom of God and Christ's Gospel. Happy feeding! Be blessed, be strong!

To God be the Glory,
Papa Sam
1 Corinthians 16:13-14


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