NO FEAR

Do you look forward to each day, approaching it with a great expectancy of good things to come? Or do you approach each day in a state of ongoing fear and dread?

The devil uses fear in various forms we don't always recognize to steal our joy and prevent us from living the kind of life God intended.

In the Bible we see God telling people whom He called to do great things to "fear not" so that fear would not stop them from moving forward in His will. Incidently, there are 365 'fear not' references, so one for each day of the year! (No, that doesn't mean you can be afraid one day in a leap year)

The Bible calls 'fear' a spirit (2 Timothy 1v7) which comes after us aggressively, so we cannot defeat it passively.

As the spirit of fear is from the devil, the only way to defeat it is in the power available as a Christian-

1 John 4v4 '...because greater is He (God, the Holy Spirit) that is in you, than he that is in the world (the devil).

The natural man in you won't want to confront the devil but will want to wish away the problem therefore keeping you defeated and deflated on the inside all the time. It's not a wishbone that's needed but backbone to confront the coward that the devil is.

Matthew 11v12 tells us that only an aggressive approach will work. Sometimes God will deliver us from some situations, but in others He anoints us to go through (Psalm 23v4) because He is developing character in us.

Don't be impressed by the problem, be impressed by God's power to overcome it!

We need to resist the devil and he will flee, when we do it God's way. As soon as the symptoms of fear start, confront them in the name and authority that Jesus has given to you as an inheritance.

The devil roams about LIKE a roaring lion (1 Peter 5v8), but He is full of hot air because Jesus, the dentist performed a full mouth clearance i.e. extractions, on him when He gave His life on the cross and descended into hell before ascending to heaven. LOVE IT!!!!! MY HERO!

Faith's attitude is one of leaning on God, trusting and being confident in Him- it is a joyful expectancy of good.

Make up your mind to go after the enemy of your soul and chase him out of your life. He has to flee. He is no match for the firepower of God. Be on guard so that when he's put out, he stays out. Take back your life and discover the destiny God has in store for you.

SUPERHERO DAD'S

'Masculinity is bestowed. A boy learns who he is and what he's got from a man, or the company of men. He cannot learn it any other place. He cannot learn it from other boys, and he cannot learn it from the world of women. The plan from the beginning of time was that his father would lay the foundation for a young boy's heart, and pass on to him that essential knowledge and confidence in his strength. Dad would be the first man in his life, and forever the most important man. Above all, he would answer the question, Do I have what it takes? Am I a man? for his son.' J. Eldredge.

Being a father is not about being a Superhero. It's about being there. Growing up my father was there but he wasn't there if you know what I mean. He was physically present but his emotions and heart were out of reach. I grew up with no self-esteem wondering if my existence really mattered. I went down the road of trying to earn my right to exist with things like good grades at school and so on but I felt like a hamster on a wheel as these achievements didn't fill that gaping hole inside so I tried harder only to end up the same.

Having a child of my own, my fear was that I wouldn't do it right, that I wouldn't be a good father because I never had a positive role model. But I learned that I don't have to be a Superhero, I just have to be there. There to give my attention and my love, to listen eagerly and participate, to read a bedtime story and be there at the school play.

God has allowed me to sow into other young men who have grown up without a male role model like myself and give them the encouragement and support they crave for. Just to be there.

My desire is to see older men giving of their time to sow into young men growing up who have no father figure to look up to and showing an example of the Father heart of God who is the ultimate 'Father to the fatherless'.

What is a man for?

(from a fantastic book 'Wild at Heart' by John Eldredge for all you frustrated guys and all you girls who want to understand us guys better)

What is a man for? If you know what something is designed to do, then you know its purpose in life. A retriever loves the water, a lion loves to hunt, a hawk loves to soar. It's what they're made for. Desire reveals design, and design reveals destiny. In the case of humans beings, our design is also revealed by our desires. Let's take adventure. God gives Adam and all his sons after him an incredible mission: rule and subdue, be fruitful and multiply. This is permission to do a heck of a lot more than cross the street. Most men think they are simply here on earth to kill time- and it's killing them. But the truth is precisely the opposite. The secret longing of your heart, whether it's to build a boat and sail it, to write a symphony and play it, to plant a field and care for it- those are the things you were made to do. Explore, build, conquer- you don't have to tell a boy to do those things for the simple reason that it is his purpose. But it's going to take risk, and danger, and there's the catch. Are we willing to live with the level of risk God invites us to?
Let's take another desire- why does a man long for a battle to fight? Because when we enter the story at the beginning of time in Genesis, we step into a world at war. The lines have already been drawn. Evil is waiting to make its next move. Man is not born into a sitcom or a soap opera, he is born into a world at war. This is not Home Improvement, it's Saving Private Ryan. There will be many, many battles to fight on many different battlefields.
And finally, why does Adam long for a beauty to rescue? Because there is Eve. He is going to need her, and she is going to need him. While the serpent is tempting Eve, Adam is standing right there: "She also gave some to her husband, who was with her. Then he ate it too" Genesis 3:6 NLT. What does he do? Nothing. He says not a word, doesn't lift a finger. He won't risk, he won't fight, and he won't rescue Eve. Our first father gave in to paralysis. He denied his very nature and went passive. And every man after him carries in his heart now the same failure. Every man repeats the sin of Adam, every day. We won't risk, we won't fight, and we won't rescue Eve. We truly are a chip off the old block.
What did Adam do? He hides. We are hiding every last one of us. Well aware that we, too, are not what we were meant to be. We hide in our office, at the gym, behind the newspaper and mostly behind our personality.

God used this book to highlight things that needed changing in my life and help me down the road to the destiny he has for me and if he can do it for me... He can do it for you!!!!

Hello there.
I've posted a photo of myself down to the left with another 'poster'! (Did you like that?) His name is Pat and we go back a long way.

My blog will be anything and everything that I can think of to bore you so don't be too expectant that you will leave here a different person with a completely different perspective on life and so on.

I'll end for now with one of my favourite quotes from Teddy Roosevelt,
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly... who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat."