Need a Dad? - Lesson Taught. Lesson Learned. - Now Think On This by Steve Martin

Need a Dad?

- Lesson Taught. Lesson Learned.

Now Think On This

Steve Martin

“And He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse." (Malachi 4:6, NKJV)

In prayer this morning the Lord reminded me of my dad, Louis James Martin, who graduated to his heavenly reward over 15 years ago at the age of 67, as a result of lymphoma cancer. I was giving thanks to my Father that my Dad had taught me practical things while growing up – like putting away the wrench tool after I used it, so it wouldn’t rust in the rain. You know – just practical, common sense things like that.

As I continued praying, I realized that many of the current generation we gave birth to don’t have a “real” Dad, or Mom, who were/are around to teach them even the basic, practical things in life. Sure, each of us had at least one parent in the beginning at the hospital, but not many then had a father or mother, who loved them enough to train them, encourage them, or show them how to live, after they left the place of their birth.

Few had a real mentor to teach them that they weren’t given life to just exist for themselves. But their life is to have life, a life with purpose, and understanding of the Creator’s plan, as they were created to be. Not only in the natural realm, but especially even more so in the spiritual one.

I mean – how many of this generation now in their teens, including even those hitting their 40’s, know what life is all about, other than playing video games for hours, standing in line for the latest hot movie a day before it opens, or getting drunk, taking drugs of all kinds, or having sex (with whomever), beginning in their middle school years?

Where are the fathers? Where are the mothers?

How far we have fallen.

The verse written just before Malachi 4:6, before the restoration of the fathers to their children, says it even more which is worth noting.

"Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse." (Malachi 4:5-6, NASU)

Our Father in heaven clearly states that He is going to do something about the mess our kids, and their kids, are in. God the Father says He is going to send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. To do what? To restore the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.

As for me, I think that day is now. Certainly we are approaching the great and terrible day of the Lord, in these last days. Thus so, I am looking, I am expecting, I am believing the Lord is going to keep this promise, His promise to His people.

Will each child have a father and mother to train them, to teach them, to instruct them in the ways of the Lord? I don’t think so, but I do believe that those who are longing for such a one in their life will certainly be given one – a “parent” who will care for them. Teach them right from wrong. Black and white. No gray stuff here.

And for those of us who know what to do, how to do it, and when to do it – live as we were created to live– we will be given these ones to do just that. Show them the way they are to go.

I am glad my Dad taught me the basics of life. That wrench that I would have left out in the grass, after adjusting the motor on my lawnmower, would have rusted after the first rain. And then I would have had to buy another one, using money I would have spent on a nice hamburger and French fries.

I am very grateful for that, but even more so, how he taught me, by example, how to live right.

Lesson taught. Lesson learned. We have to do the same for those who need it now.

My eyes are open. My heart is ready, as a father, to teach those who want to be taught.

My heart has been turned to my children, and those who need a dad.

So think on this, in the love of Jesus,

Steve Martin

Love For His People, Inc.

P.S. I would be most grateful if you'd share this encouraging word with your family and friends. They might need it. You can easily use the social media icons below. Thanks! Steve

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Now Think On This - In the New Year of our Lord 01.18.16 - #235 –“Need A Dad? Lesson Taught. Lesson Learned.” – Monday at 6:30 am

All previous editions of Now Think On This can be found on this Blog, and on the website: Now Think On This

Again, I would be most grateful if you'd share this encouraging word with your family and friends. You can easily use the social media icons below. Thanks! Steve

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Buy here: The Promise by Steve Martin

Throughout our lives, God keeps His hand on our shoulders and nudges us on to more than what we could ever realize. I am excited to share how He did it this with me, and am confident mine will be a story you’ll be able to relate to. 

As I unveil my story, think back to those times when you knew there was some¬thing more but you just couldn’t put your finger on it. You knew deep down that life wasn’t what the TV sitcoms portrayed it to be. In our souls there is the hope, the cry for more, that someday questions will be answered and promises fulfilled if we just kept plugging away at what we know to do. 

In The Promise I share my 40 year journey with you, and show you that dreams do come true. Though Peter Pan isn’t real, the Lord, the One Who created us, certainly is, and He has a plan in place for each one of us. When you are done reading this story, my prayer is that you too will know more of that good plan and His purpose for you.

Steve Martin

Founder

Love For His People

Charlotte, NC

Gathering Crowds or Making Disciples? by Micah Bales

Gathering Crowds or Making Disciples? 

by Micah Bales

Identity Network

What is the basis of real spiritual community? A large number of people showing up on Sunday morning? Having a deep spiritual experience, whether in a worship service or in personal devotions? Or is it a dedicated commitment to live a certain way and follow the rules?

All of these elements show up in the story of Jesus. Lots of people certainly showed up to hear him preach. At times, Jesus seems like some kind of homeless mega-church pastor. So many people come to hear him that he often has to run away or get in a boat just to find some breathing space! Yet, it seems clear that Jesus' most important ministry is not with the crowds.

Throughout Jesus' ministry, there are regular signs and wonders, healings, and deep times of spiritual reflection and religious experience. Yet, as important as these dramatic moments are, personal experience for its own sake does not seem to be the most essential part of Jesus' message.

Jesus asks very hard things of his followers. He tells them that for a person to enter the kingdom of heaven, their righteousness will have to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees - those best known for following all the commandments of Torah down to the letter. Yet, Jesus is not slave to rules and regulations. He and His disciples regularly break the Sabbath in order to accomplish their mission of love. Jesus challenges the ruling authorities, and is eventually executed as an outlaw.

Jesus is neither a crowd-pleaser, experience-addict, nor a legalistic rule-follower. What is he? What lies at the heart of his ministry?

Committed as His Disciple

Jesus' ministry is not about breadth of numbers, but depth of commitment. It is not about highs of ecstasy, but patient endurance and willingness to suffer for truth. The model that Jesus offers is not a list of rules that makes me feel safe, but rather a dangerous invitation to become His disciple, His friend. He calls me to become like He is and walk as He did.

As a friend of Jesus, my work is not to gather crowds; I am to make disciples. Jesus calls me to break my addiction to religious experiences, to move beyond the fluctuations of hormones and emotion and embrace true love. I can no longer justify myself through head-knowledge and checklist morality. Instead, the Spirit invites me to embrace the mystery of who Jesus is, allowing Him to humble me and fill me with His character.

What would it look like to live in communities where this kind of disciple-making could take place? Instead of measuring our faithfulness by numbers of worship attendance, what if we focused on the people that we are able to actively mentor and partner with in discipleship?

As an alternative to the rule-book mindset we find in much religion, what if we emphasized the radical power of a living relationship with Jesus? (He's risen from the dead, not entombed in a book!) What would it look like to be part of a community that honored spiritual experiences, but valued the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control - even more?

Micah Bales

www.lambswar.com

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J. Lee Grady - 9 Ways to Raise Your Spiritual Temperature CHARISMA MAGAZINE

9 Ways to Raise 

Your Spiritual Temperature

1/22/2014 J. LEE GRADY, CHARISMA MAGAZINE

I’m not a cold-weather guy. I live in central Florida, a land of flip-flops, shorts and water parks that stay open 365 days a year. Our average temperature in Orlando in January is 71 degrees. In the summer, a humid 95 is fine with me.

But I have friends in Minneapolis, Rochester, Philadelphia and Baltimore who endured the “polar vortex” of 2014. We haven’t seen temperatures like that in more than two decades. It was minus 40 in Minnesota in early January. The mercury hit minus 13 in Milwaukee. It was so cold in Chicago (minus 16) that the polar bear at the Lincoln Park Zoo was moved indoors!

When this record-breaking deep freeze hit, I was reading the book of Romans—and Romans 12:11 jumped off the page. The apostle Paul told his followers that in order to please God they needed to be “fervent in spirit” (NASB). The Greek word for "fervent," zeo, means “to boil with heat.” We have a responsibility to stay hot for God no matter how cold our spiritual environment is.

But how do you stay “on fire” for the Lord? How can you raise your spiritual temperature at a time when many people’s faith has gone from lukewarm to freezing? Here are some steps you can take to reach the boiling point:

1. Get back in the Word. Spiritual zeal is kindled in your heart when you hear God speak through the pages of the Bible. I’m not talking about remotely reading daily devotionals with your eyes halfway open. When you desperately dig in the Scriptures to find truth, you will say, like the disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was ... explaining the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). The Word will set your heart ablaze.

2. Stoke the furnace of private prayer. Fires don’t last long if you don’t regularly pile wood on the flames. You should guard your quiet time with God as if your life depended on it. You cannot survive spiritually without regular communion with the Lord. Oswald Chambers put it bluntly: “Prayer is the vital breath of the Christian; not the thing that makes him alive, but the evidence that he is alive.”

3. Praise God with abandon. Sometimes discouragement, fear and anxiety can form icicles in our souls. The only way to melt them is to rejoice in the Lord. Are you going through an extended period of heaviness or disappointment? You need to sing and shout! When you praise God with exuberance, new strength will arise. Make a decision that you will praise God in a more vocal, uninhibited way this year than ever before. If you need help praising God, play a recording by one of your favorite Christian artists and sing along.

4. Break free from bad habits. Paul told the Thessalonians, “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19). Are you doing anything that is extinguishing the Spirit’s flames in your life? Many Christians remain perpetually immature, unable to grow spiritually, because they won’t let go of lustful habits or addictions. If you choose to live in bondage, you will never be hot for God.

5. Get rid of your resentments. Jesus said in the last days “most people’s love will grow cold” (Matt. 24:12). Don’t be a part of that cooling trend. Nothing puts out the flame of God’s love faster than bitterness. Don’t allow unforgiveness to freeze your soul. Guard your heart and deal with offenses quickly.

6. Get in close fellowship. Fires go out when the embers are far apart. But when you pull the coals close together, the flames return. This is why we should never live the Christian life in seclusion. God called us to be in community. But make sure you are in a church that is on fire for God—because a dead church could put out what is left of your fire. If your church compromises God’s Word or ignores the Great Commission, you should find a new church home.

7. Start using your spiritual gifts. Real spiritual passion is ignited when you serve others. Every Christian has a spiritual gift—and you are no exception. You must face your fears and stretch your faith as you begin to step out, but soon you will find there is no greater joy than being an instrument of the Holy Spirit to bless people. And when the oil of His anointing flows through you, your spiritual temperature will go up.

8. Find a mentor. I love to hang around zealous, passionate Christians because their heat directly affects mine. I sometimes ask these firebrands to lay hands on me and pray. Sometimes I make appointments with them so I can glean from their wisdom and experience. You can be sure that when Elisha saw Elijah go to heaven in a fiery chariot, he was affected by the heat. Get as close as possible to those who are burning for God, and you will be ignited.

9. Share your faith. There is nothing more exciting, in my opinion, than leading a person to faith in Christ. Yet statistics show that 95 percent of Christians have never led one soul to salvation. I guarantee if you step out of your timidity and share the gospel with a neighbor, a co-worker, a server at a restaurant or a stranger on the subway, your spiritual temperature will instantly rise 30 degrees—and you will want to share with someone else.

In this new year, I encourage you to take your flame out from under a basket and let it blaze before men. This cold, dark world needs fervent Christians who have reached the boiling point of spiritual passion.

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma and the director of the Mordecai Project (themordecaiproject.org). You can follow him on Twitter at @leegrady. He is the author of The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale and other books.

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