I found a great e-book to download for free this week to do with manhood and masculinity, particularly as it relates to men working. It’s written by a guy called Richard Phillips and is called Masculine Mandate.
There are some really interesting thoughts in the book but none more so than the area surrounding Phillips’ disagreement with John Eldredge’s big thought in Wild at Heart about the core of mans’ heart.
In Phillips’ first chapter he writes:
The drip feed imagery of Matthew 4:4 in the Message is really helpful in understanding what Jesus was meaning about how to read the bible and build a healthy devotional life:
I was in hospital this week for an ankle operation and within 10 seconds of the Anesthetist putting a intro-venous line into my hand and starting the flow of drugs, I was gone – totally asleep and oblivious to pain and trauma allowing the Surgeon to do his work.
by George Herbert
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.
“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”
“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.
Dear Reader
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working on a new updated blog site to capture not only thoughts and ideas, but to generate healthy, helpful forums for discussion about a whole bunch of topics.
Firebrand Notes are rooted in the knowledge of Who Jesus really is – to me, to you and to the Cosmos. It is rooted in a passion to make Him known, really known, because He is often not known at all or known in a way that makes Him seem less desirable than He is in reality.
The main purpose of this article is to empower Christians to be able to think about the philosophies of our modern culture that produce the anti-Christian atmosphere hanging over virtually every tabloid and headline. It is also to empower expression as to why the proposed (so-called) ‘redefinition of marriage’ is absolutely wrong.
I had a thought yesterday that really encouraged me, so thought I’d share.
In Romans 15 Paul prays, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”. Where might this land in your world?
When we are hoping and believing and trusting for some things in life for any length of time it can easily become weary or tiring if the things themselves don’t materialise within our time-scale – ie we hope for an outcome but it doesn’t happen and so we can become discouraged. We hope for an outcome again but it still doesn’t happen and so we can become more discouraged.
But when there is a bubbling, overflowing brook of Hope constantly brimming over within us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it means we can go on and on and on hoping, despite not seeing the object of our hope appearing. We are free so we don’t need to see the things in reality for our hope to be intact.
This is supernatural hope, not the hope that the world offers. It’s not a blind, ‘stick your head in the sand’ type of wishful thinking; it’s the very evidence of the very God of Hope Himself residing within you enabling you to continue hoping as you believe in Him. Being able to hope like this (against all hope Rom.4) is a mystery and an unspeakable blessing.
Be encouraged!
“Humans are amphibians-half spirit and half animal (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.)…This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation-the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.” Letter 8
To buy my debut book, “Body Zero – Radical Preparation for the Return of Christ” visit http://www.bodyzerobook.com
Plato’s problem is that there isn’t enough stimuli in the world around us to reinforce the knowledge-based convictions we have in our heads; we don’t experience what we know. But Heraclitus would have said 100 years before that it doesn’t matter because everything is changing constantly anyway – you can’t step into the same river twice because before your second foot touches the water the river has moved on. The river changes.
And so is our knowledge-application-gap getting smaller or is it getting bigger as we continue to ‘know’ and struggle, (if we’re all honest), to experience? Are we changing and becoming more as our knowledge tells us we should be? Specifically, are we changing to progressively experience the power of the Holy Spirit that we see in the Bible?
If God had a fridge He’d have your picture on it…
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