Wednesday, August 22, 2012


Men,

Welcome to the ninth annual CEO Ministries Fearless Faith Mens workshop. 


Who are you, and why are you here? 

It seems so many guys want that answered as no one has ever told them. That is the job of a father, but today many otherwise good men do not seem to have fathers. Far too many of our brothers live day to day by accident, and have no real spiritual objectives in their lives. 

WHO ARE YOU? 

When asked WHO ARE YOU??, A Christian with a Fearless Faith might answer - I Am A Mighty Man Of God, bought by the blood shed by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and I Am motivated by God's Holy Spirit to Fight And Resist Evil Wherever I Find It, or it finds me. 

This answer demonstrates a confidence in Christ, and communicates a simple matter of clarity of mission and purity of focus. 
To serve our Triune God with distinction, you must serve with your heart and your mind....all of it.



The next question may be WHAT DO YOU WANT?

A common secular man may ask for a Plasma TV, or to do something be fuel his shallow, lost, confused spirit?  



The Spiritual man may ask HOW CAN I GLORIFY GOD TODAY? 


Do not fall to the lie brothers...embrace the Lion's ferocity. And if you are skilled and you are strong, never forget that it is by His hand that you are these things. Being proud of what God has called you to do is one thing...being lazy and arrogant is quite another.

Psalm 144;1 Praise be to the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.

Those are the answers of a clear mind, a clear mission and a pure focus. If that is you wake up! Snap out of the mundane, and laziness of the modern age and awake to your Christian Fearless Faith

Monday, August 20, 2012




                      Seeking God Through Christ





1. Growing in the knowledge of Jesus Christ requires...
   a. The development of a daily relationship with Jesus Christ
   b. In conjunction with each other
   c. With all diligence
   What does it do for you?  It will gradually produce a Christ-like character.


2. Reasons to grow in this knowledge include...
   a. Grace and peace are multiplied in the knowledge of the Gospel of Christ
   b. All things pertaining to life and godliness are provided through the knowledge of the 
          Gospel of Christ
   c. Spiritual laziness and amnesia are avoided by this knowledge
   d. When we stumble, God will show us a way out if can abound in this knowledge
   What does it do for you? An abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom will be ours 
   through Christ!


3. Thus the development of a Christ-like character...
   a. Begins with the foundation of faith in Jesus (conviction and trust)
   b. To which we add the quality of virtue (striving for excellence)
   c. Increasing in knowledge (regarding God's will)
   d. To which we add the grace of self-control (mastering one's desires
     and passions)
   What does it do for you? It will help strengthen our perseverance to bear up trials and 
   temptations

If a man know not how to rule - A church resembles a family. It is, indeed, larger, and there is a greater variety of dispositions in it than there is in a family. The minister of the gospel in a church is also less absolute than that of a father. Yet there is a striking resemblance. The church is made up of an assemblage of brothers and sisters. They are banded together for the same purposes, and have a common object to aim at. They have common feelings and common needs. They have sympathy, like a family, with each other in their distresses and afflictions. The government of the church - Board of Elders  also are designed to be "paternal." It should be felt that he who presides over it has the feelings of a father; that he loves all the members of the great family; that he has no prejudices, no partialities, no selfish aims to gratify.

Now, if a man cannot govern his own family well; if he is severe, partial, neglectful in teaching the God's Word, or tyrannical at home, how can he be expected to take charge of the more numerous "household of faith" church with proper views and feelings? 

Leading a family requires so much resolution, prudence, care, and thought. God has charged each man to preside over it, rule in it, provide for it, and see that everything is in its proper place, and done according to the will of God.

Even when your children leave the household it is still your responsibility to encourage them spiritually. 

Your Action Step's

1) Gaining a better understanding of what and who Jesus Christ is.

2) Help your family make a connection with God's Word.

3) Encourage your family member's to attend Sunday school, and Bible studies. 

There is always time to start. So lead by example, and patterns of spiritual laziness will change. The amount of freedom and opportunities are endless as the Devil lures us away from faithfully fulfilling our role as head of the household. He tempts us, and encourages us to wrestle with doubt, the mysteries of scripture and its applicability to the problems in own lives. Satan plays an active role in our thought process when it comes to attending Bible study, and is related to the holding us back in the maturity of our faith. 

God through His grace remains patient with us. The Christian life should be lived in "self-control, uprightness, and godliness." Again, the knowledge of the Word of God and the filling of the Holy Spirit is the key, not the legalistic teaching of many churches. Morality is not the issue, the controlling ministry of the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of Bible doctrine is the real issue.

The Christian life should be lived in the "great expectation of the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ." The knowledge of the Word of God and the filling of the Holy Spirit is the only way to obtain this attitude of "great expectation." and all of this is the product of grace.

So what are you waiting for? 

Thursday, August 16, 2012

What is the legacy of God's Word in your family?


We live in times where God is "respected" but not "revered"; where people trust in the supernatural but not the supernatural God of Scriptures; where feelings outweigh faith; hope has been usurped by hopelessness; where religious devotion is practiced more like a picnic than the knee-knocking, heart-pricking experience of Scripture. 

Q) What practices have you exampled in your home regarding God's Word? 

Q) Have you carved time into your busy schedule and spent time in God's Word together? 

Q) Did your actions help pass down the legacy of God's Word? 

Throughout my years of attending worship, Bible study, and having the unique privilege of leading teens to closer to Christ at our families home church. God be praised through the youth ministry we were able to encourage 50-60 teens every Sunday morning. Churches currently have a consistent low turn out for Bible study. The most common excuse is I don't really get anything out of Bible study. I used that excuse all of the time, but now struggle with it.  We have a serious problem if we get nothing out of it! 


Stay in God's Word
You can NOT separate God from His Word. He is the Word. God's Word which is Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ transforms us into His image as it replaces the deception in our hearts. 


John 1:1-4 (NIV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

God's Word was so revealed that we might, through diligent study, understand it:

We can know the truth (John. 8:22). 

We can understand Paul's knowledge of the mystery (Eph 3:3-4).

We are to study to be approved (2 Tim. 2:15). 

We are to give attendance unto reading (1 Tim. 4:13).

We can train ourselves to distinguish between good and evil ( Hebrews 5:14)

It is my opinion that every believer including called workers are students of Jesus Christ, until God calls us home. We should be encouraging each other to be more responsible and responsive in meditating on God's Word daily. 
Job wrote (Job 23:12) that he “treasured the words of [God], more than my portion of food.” 1 Timothy 3:8 tells us that “godliness is of value in every way,” and such godliness is only attainable through God’s Word (2 Cor. 3:18). 1 Peter 1:3 explains that God’s power “has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us,” such knowledge only being available through the Bible.

Not intending to be rude, and leaving room for God's grace, believers need to be cautious about their personal laziness, and excuses when it comes to the lack of giving attention to God's Word.  Year after year most  Christians may attend weekly worship or Bible study "like a dead fish" and then complain, "I don't get anything out of it." 
Q) What kind of an effort did you honestly make? 

Q Where is the reverence for God's Word? 
Without the help of God's Holy Spirit believers may live in the continual state of confusion that their such unjustified criticisms seem justified to them. It seems to me that we need to exercise care, yet still  increase the importance of daily use of God's Word in our families homes. We men need to set the example for those God has entrusted to us to care for. Above all, let us each do everything possible to enhance the effectiveness of  God's Kingdom work together.
1 Peter 1:3-11
3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Stay in God's Word and add to your faith through the means of grace! 











Tuesday, August 7, 2012


 "Lord, 'Tis Not that I did Choose Thee"
  by Josiah Conder, 1789-1855



        1. Lord, 'tis not that I did choose Thee;
        That, I know, could never be;
        For this heart would still refuse Thee
        Had Thy grace not chosen me.
        Thou hast from the sin that stained me
        Washed and cleansed and set me free
        And unto this end ordained me,
        That I ever live to Thee.

        2. 'Twas Thy grace in Christ that called me,
        Taught my darkened heart and mind;
        Else the world had yet enthralled me,
        To Thy heavenly glories blind.
        Now my heart owns none above Thee;
        For Thy grace alone I thirst,
        Knowing well that, if I love Thee,
        Thou, O Lord, didst love me first.

        3. Praise the God of all creation;
        Praise the Father's boundless love.
        Praise the Lamb, our Expiation,
        Priest and King enthroned above.
        Praise the Spirit of salvation,
        Him by whom our spirits live.
        Undivided adoration
        To the great Jehovah give.

We need to know the One on whom we're leaning and what we're really leaning on him for.  We were born not of blood, not of man, not of the human will--we were born of God. That is, we were brought into being as spiritually alive people by God. We were dead, according to Ephesians 2, and now we are alive together with God--by grace we have been saved.
Grace is the sovereign work by which God speaks to the dead corpse of our own spiritual life, and says, "Lazarus, come forth," and we awake from the dead, or "John Piper, come forth!," and we are brought into being. We need to know that so that we can rest in God's sovereign saving of us. That's how we got saved! We didn't somehow raise ourselves from the dead. We didn't somehow create--out of nothing--spiritual affections. God did this for us, which leads now to the first thing: he means to be glorified for all of this.  God wants to be acknowledged for all that he has done and for all that he is. We will not give him all of the praise and glory that he should get if we don't acknowledge what he has done for us. So I think it is really important that we teach people how they actually got saved, even if they don't fully understand how they got saved, because we want them to begin--now better than never--praising and honoring and relying on God for all that he did and not just for part of it.


Text From:
 THE HANDBOOK TO THE LUTHERAN HYMNAL
 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1942)p.32