Leaderhip Training - Mark

At the beginning of the year, God challenged our small group of men to seek Him through daily Bible reading.

• Challenged us to blog for accountability
• Challenged us to attend Saturday morning breakfast @ 6:00am to filter the men from the boys
• We made a conscious choice not to become a ladies tea party
• Something must have resonated with your soul to become part of our group

Satan knows that a group of men daily seeking God is a huge threat to his world. Satan has been attacking on every front:

• Health
• Marriage
• Resentment
• Selfishness
• Unforgiveness

We seek the keys to the kingdom:

• Spiritual gifts (discernment / wisdom / healing / casting out deamons)
• Wealth and provision

God has freely given out the keys before, but his chosen men have failed every time.

• Saul -Failed to follow God wholeheartedly by killing all of the Amalekites.
  
• David - Committed adultery with Bathsheeba and had her husband murdered.
  
• Solomon - Was seduced by the pagan gods of his wives, and he failed to worship God wholeheartedly.

God has decided that we must be trained prior being given the keys to the kingdom:

• We must learn to hear His voice. (John 10:27 "My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me")
• Commit to daily seek / walk with Him
• Must demonstrate obedience

The Word is Living:

• Simply attending church or a small group is being force fed.
• You can read the entire Bible without discernment and obtain nothing
  
• The Holy Spirit makes the Word come alive
• God has a Rhema word (specific word) for us each day
• It is my job to find that word and research it
• By seeking Him first thing in the morning, I trust God to make the rest of my day more efficient (Tithing of my time)

Surrounded by Counsel:

• Advocate - A peer with the ability to speak into your life. Someone that loves you enough to tell you when you are messing up. We need these advocates for accountability.
  
• Discipleship - We need a mentor to disciple us, and we must disciple others. (Matthew 28:19 "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.")

Closing Questions:

• What is stopping you from daily seeking God by reading His word?
• Are you man enough to admit that your reason is an excuse?
• Who is your advocate? Who loves you enough to tell you the trust?
• Who is discipling you?
• Who are you discipling?
  

Total Submission - Mark

Proverbs 1:25-33
"Since you laugh at my counsel
and make a joke of my advice,
How can I take you seriously?
I'll turn the tables and joke about your troubles!
What if the roof falls in,
and your whole life goes to pieces?
What if catastrophe strikes and there's nothing
to show for your life but rubble and ashes?
You'll need me then. You'll call for me, but don't expect an answer.
No matter how hard you look, you won't find me.

"Because you hated Knowledge
and had nothing to do with the Fear-of-God,
Because you wouldn't take my advice
and brushed aside all my offers to train you,
Well, you've made your bed—now lie in it;
you wanted your own way—now, how do you like it?
Don't you see what happens, you simpletons, you idiots?
Carelessness kills; complacency is murder.
First pay attention to me, and then relax.
Now you can take it easy—you're in good hands."

If I choose to only submit portions of my life to God, how can I expect Him to bless my entire life? What must I do to find God's blessing? The first step is absolute submission.

Proverbs 1:7
Start with God—the first step in learning is bowing down to God;
only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.

The God of the universe is not bound by physics, space, or time. He knows every strand of DNA of every creature that has ever lived or will ever live. He orchestrates slow people on Yelm Highway to keep me out of accidents, and he pushes every breath of air into my lungs.

Is there any way imaginable that I could do a better job managing my life than God? When I fully understand how magnificent God is and how insignificant I am, there really is no choice but total submission to His will and His ways.

How can I hear from Him when His Word is closed? Total submission starts with daily Bible reading.

Entitled Living - Mark

God is desperately seeking men that will simply obey Him and walk with Him daily. Several times in the Bible, God has made the following promise to men that He has raised up as leaders:

1 Kings 9:4-5
As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, You shall never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.

Solomon was given incredible wisdom and an immense fortune, but it was not enough. Sin crept in and Solomon became entitled. Once He became self reliant, He no longer needed to daily walk with God.

1 Kings 11:1-4
King Solomon was obsessed with women. Pharaoh's daughter was only the first of the many foreign women he loved—Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite. He took them from the surrounding pagan nations of which God had clearly warned Israel, "You must not marry them; they'll seduce you into infatuations with their gods." Solomon fell in love with them anyway, refusing to give them up. He had seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines—a thousand women in all! And they did seduce him away from God. As Solomon grew older, his wives beguiled him with their alien gods and he became unfaithful—he didn't stay true to his God as his father David had done.

Men have demonstrated through our failures that we are irresponsible with the keys to the kingdom. He can not give us wealth and influence without intense training.

I believe that I am going through an intense training period prior to being raised up a a leader in the kingdom. He is training me to walk with Him daily, to read His word, to hear His voice, and to obey unconditionally.

Thank you Jesus for the training. Please don't give me the keys until I am ready.

Romans 5:4-5 (The Message) - Seth

3-5There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when
we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can
develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn
forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God
will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left
feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough
containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives
through the Holy Spirit!

Trusting in God - Stacy

As I sat and read this morning, I reflected on how much I really trust God in everything I do. In the past, not so much. But lately as I continue to grow in my faith, I am learning to listen and be more obedient to God. As I do, HE has been doing some wonderful things in my life and blessing me and others in ways I can't even describe.

Am I completely there yet? Honestly, not really, but I continue to work on it daily. I can truely say that reading daily is not a challenge for me anymore because I have trusted the Lord will provide the time if I am willing to give Him my undivided attention. I know not all of you are reading daily, so I challenge you, give Him the time and make that commitment and see what happens. I know its hard... I was there once.. And work on trusting God in everything, and see how richly he blesses you.