Happy Birthday PAC Man

The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him. Proverbs 23:24(ESV)
Wow, that verse weighs very if your a dad! We as fathers are to be raising righteous and wise sons (children), but what does that mean? Well, there's no way that we can raise righteous and wise children if we first are not righteous and wise.
Romans 1:16-18 says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."(ESV)
For us as fathers to be righteous and wise I think we first need to examine our relationship with Jesus. Do you have a relationship with him? If not, check this out. If so, is it a relationship that is healthy and growing?
The most important tool that we as Christians have in becoming righteous and wise is the Bible. We, like the Apostle Paul, should never be ashamed of Gods word, and these verses give us two reasons why not to be. First is in verse 16. "For it is the power of God for salvation" and in verse 17, "For in it the righteousness of God is revealed".
I think verse 17 really sums it up. The righteousness of God is revealed in the Bible. What better example of living a Godly life than God himself. We need to really know God and the best way we can do that is to be consistently in the Scriptures meditating on them and then living them out daily. Application of the Scriptures is key. You can know all you want to know about God and it will never matter if your not acting on it.
Allow me challenge those of you reading this, maybe by accident, to be in Gods word every day, grow in your relationship with Christ and apply the scriptures to your life. Then, by Gods grace, you'll find yourself growing in righteousness and wisdom.

One year ago Today Peyton Anderson Charles was born into this world. Happy birthday PAC man, daddy loves you!!!!

I love my wife!

Proverbs 12:4 says "An excellent wife is the crown of her husband..."(ESV) Crown does not even describe how awesome my wife is! God has honored me greatly by giving me the best wife and mother to my kids I could ask for. Today is Harmony's 30th birthday, we got married when she was 20, and I love her even more today. I didn't think that was possible but it's true! Happy birthday babe, I love you so much!

With Pain Comes Growth

James chapter 1 verses 2&3 talks about trials, patients, and being made perfect and complete, what an awesome evolution of the human condition.
About 4 times a week I choose to go down into my dungeon (home gym) and put my body through various trials. I've been working out for the last twelve years and I'm still not sure why. I guess there could be a few reasons for it. One, I'm a glutton for punishment. Two, genetics suck! Or three, I know that in the long run it is the best thing for my health and even though there is some pain that goes along with it, I'll be stronger and better off for putting myself through it. It really hurts the most when I'm lifting for those big gains, but I know that with pain comes growth.
Often times we find ourselves going through one trial or another and we're not really sure why. For some it may be because of some bad choices that have been made and now the consequences have come calling. Or it may be that God has allowed something to take place and some hardships ensue.
With either of these two scenarios there is no doubt some level of pain or discomfort to take place. The pain can take place in many different forms. It could be in the form of something physical, like cancer. It could be in the form of finances, such as a loss of a job. Regardless the reason or the form of the pain there is always something that can be learned from it.
Whenever we make a dumb choice and suffer the consequences for it, the lesson learned is obvious, don't make that or similar choices again. We can always learn from our mistakes. But what about those times when pain or hardship comes and we're not sure how we got there or why it's taking place?
I like to consider these times the time to make those big gains spiritually. God allows things to happen in our lives for a few reasons. One, to grow us or stretch us in our faith and dependence on him. Two, God wants to teach us something so that we might know him more. Or three, God wants to do something through us so that in the end he will be glorified and be made much of.
What ever the reason for the hard times or pain, we can be sure that it is for our good and for Gods glory. Just like with our physical bodies, we can't grow without some level of pain, spiritual growth may also come with a level of pain as well. We should embrace those hard time, know that God is in control, learn what God has for us, and draw closer to him.
I had mentioned earlier the this the verses in James 1 verses 2&3 was an evolution of the human condition. We are evolving, going through hard times, growing in our faith and hopefully becoming more Christ like. This process will continue until the the end when Christ will make us as he is. Until then, trust in God, grow in your faith and know that he is foe=rever in control.

Head Control

Last week I was in a ministry meeting at church. It was one of those meetings that lasts all day and until it's over you don't really know how it's going to turn out. For this post the content of this meeting is not important, but a phrase that was mentioned has had me thinking all week. The guy who was heading up our meeting had mentioned that he had been wrestling with some things that had to to with the ministry and that's what got me thinking.
All through middle and high school, from November to March, I wrestled. OK, here is where you can make fun of the uniforms but if you do I guess you were just not man enough to wear them.
There are many fundamentals when it comes to wrestling but there was one that was taught and then always pounded into our heads, sometimes literally. It was that whenever you were on your feet you always wanted to gain control of your opponents head. You did this by "locking up" and grabbing the back of your opponents head. From this position you had a few options open to you. You can either snap their head down to the mat, slap the back of their head with the palm of your hand, or grab at the base of their head and pull them where you wanted them to go. The first two options are mostly for intimidation and to throw them off their game. The third option is used to set yourself up for another move so that you can take them down.If you control your opponents head, then you control their direction.
A good leader will always have control over his ministry. He'll have a vision of where he wants to take it and a plan to take him and his team to the place where God wants them to end up.
Are you wrestling with something or someone in ministry? Have you allowed it or them to take control? If so, stop it! As the leader you need to lead, that's why God put you in the position your in. On the other hand, maybe your wrestling with God.
When wrestling with God everything changes. We need to allow him to have control so that he can lead where he wants us to go. We can't control God but we can control how much we allow God to have control of over our life. When you give God the control you'll find out he has some pretty sweet moves!

Hanging with Jesus in the Dungeon

Matthew chapter 6 contains some of the most well known words of Jesus. Well known to both Christians and non Christians alike. This prayer is widely known as the Lords prayer, but better described as the disciples prayer. It is through this pray where Jesus teaches his disciple how and where to pray. He warns them that they should not be like the hypocrites who pray in places where they are sure to be seen and wowed at for their high level of "spirituality". Noting that, because of the praise they receive from men, they have already received their reward.
Instead Jesus tells his disciples that when they pray they should "go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret"
I think the point that Jesus is making is that when you pray get away from all distractions. Make your alone time with God a time of quality not quantity. While God does want to spend a lot of time with you he would rather have an intimate conversation with you, receiving your praise and knowing whats on your heart than just getting a quick "hey God, how are ya? This is what I need, gimme gimme gimme."
So what does this room where you talk to God look like? For me it's two places. The first is my lawn. I love working out in the lawn, planting flowers and playing in the dirt. For living in a neighborhood my lawn is huge. It takes me a minimum of two hours to mow it (I need a bigger mower). It is in these two hours of no distractions where I can talk to God and share with him whats on my heart and praise him for all he has done for me and my family.
The second place where I get alone with God is my dungeon. Tucked away in the dark corner of my basement is where I have my gym set up. My kids are to little to use it, and my wife does not like to push metal around. So it's just me, a lot of cold steel and God. Just like when I'm in the lawn my head gets clear of distractions and I'm able to talk to God and allow him to also speak to me.Sure sometimes I'm asking God why he has given me a passion for physical exercise, I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.
So how about it what does your alone "room" with God look like? Click the comment button below and let me know. Maybe we can pass some ideas around.

Be aware of the what in the road!?

If your saying, "Is that an elephant lying dead in the road" then you you be correct. I found this story on the Fox News web site, and thought it was just amazing. You can read the whole story here. Then it got me thinking, this elephant in the road is sometimes like how we find the sin in our lives. We're going along in life, things seems to be going just fine, then WHAM! We run head on into a sin that we know shouldn't be there, and actually we wouldn't even expect it to be there but it's there and it has to be dealt with! I'll be honest, I've had this problem and for me it was pride. I never really thought of myself as being prideful, but then WHAM! It hit like a ton of bricks, and I didn't realize I was dealing with this sin until it showed up rather unexpectedly.
As a youth leader at my church, and this would apply to any leader, pride is something that has to always be kept in check. We can never have an attitude that we have arrived or know it all because of the size church we lead, number of people we've lead to Christ, conferences we're asked to speak at etc.
What we should have and need is confidence. In the book of Acts when the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit they began preaching and teaching the gospel with boldness. Of course this is the same Holy Spirit we're filled with today when we give our life to Christ, or Christ saves us (if your a Calvinist). Either way where filled with the Holy Spirit and given the boldness to preach the gospel.
The only leader that's ever come along and can think he has arrived is Jesus. Yet pride nor any other sin never entered his life. He preached and taught with boldness and confidence but it was always wrapped with with humility.
What about you, is there a sin in your life that you need to take care of? It's good examine yourself from time to time.If we are at least aware of the fact we have certain sin problem, we can take the necessary steps to avoid hitting it. A sin problem can quickly turn into a huge sin problem, then WHAM! On a positive note however, with Jesus' help all sin can eventually become roadkill.

Scripture, keepin it real!

The last six weeks have been great for me as far as my Bible study is concerned. As you may or may not know from a previous post, I use the Inductive Bible Study Method when studying scripture. Over the last six weeks I've been studying through the book of Galatians, and if your familiar with Galatians you'll know that there is six chapters in it. Every week I started a new chapter and spent the whole week studying that chapter, man it was awesome.
What was also very interesting as well as humbling, was how much my own life as well as many other Christians lives resembled the churches of Galatia. We have heard the gospel, yet we allow stupid things to creep in and after a while we see these stupid things as part of the gospel. This was the case with the churches of Galatia. Paul took these churches to task for this and he also spends much of the book reminding them of what Christ has done for them and how that only through faith in Jesus can our sin and our lives be justified before God.
Like the church it's not until someone lovingly corrects us that we repent of our sin and begin seeing the gospel for what it really is and for what it really says.
What about you? Have you ever ever found yourselves adding something to the gospel that was never there? I know I have, although stupid, I'll give you an example. I thought for a long time that because the Bible calls our bodies the temple of God in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 , I figured that smoking was a huge sin. While smoking is stupid, unattractive and very unhealthy, it's not a sin. It wasn't until I actually read it in context and saw it for what it was truly saying that I realize my error. Those verses in 1 Corinthians in context are talking about sexual immorality.
Many of the reasons, as was mine, that people have a wrong perspective of the Bible is because they were incorrectly taught what the Bible says and were never taught how to correctly study the Bible for themselves. I'm sure my parents were well intentioned in telling me that smoking was a sin, but they should have just said it was stupid and left it at that.
Let me encourage you to take time and study the Bible, don't rush through it but absorb all that it has to say in it's right context.