Be Strong in Spirit to be “All In” with relationship to Jesus the Christ – When Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with … all your soul”, He was referring to the spiritual component of our relationship with Him. He told his disciples, “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.” – John 14:16. The disciples were filled with the Spirit at Pentecost and equipped to minister under the influence of the Holy Spirit from that point on.

Paul’s word in Romans conveyed similar encouragement – “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, “Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” – Rom. 8:15-16. The charge is to stay under the influence of the Holy Spirit in all we do.

Failure to stay under the influence of the Holy Spirit opens the door to bad choices ...Read on

Last week I referred to being “All In” with relationship to Jesus the Christ – He told us to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.” – Matthew 22:37. The message resonated with many that I talked with via email & phone, but the question remained – “How do I do ‘All In’?”  It requires being Strong in heart, soul and mind.

The first step is to Be Strong in heart. Jesus said, “all your heart”, referring to a physical commitment to Him. When His disciples heard, “Follow me”, they were convicted to stop what they were doing and to step up in a physical commitment to Him. Jesus would spend the next three years strengthening their soul and mind but it required a physical commitment, their whole heart. Jesus expected each of His disciples, and that includes us, to be tuned-in to Him 24/7. Read on ...

I was all in with tennis as a kid. I ate, drank and slept tennis, determined to be the next Rod Laver. I would walk to the city courts and play all day, every day in the summer. If there wasn’t anyone there to hit with, I would hit serves or hit against the backboard. I loved the game and was blessed to play at the university level. But the reality was that I would not make it to Rod Laver’s level of play. I wasn’t even the best on our team. I realized that being all in with a game could cause problems with relationships, not to mention graduation and job prospects.

Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” – Matthew 22:37-38. When Jesus says “all” three times in one sentence, He means to be ALL in with Him. ...read on

On the anniversary of our great nation I was struck by how little I heard about prayer. In “One Nation Under God”, James P. Moore documents the significance of prayer throughout our history and specific prayer warriors such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, General George Patton, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower to name a few. It should be required reading in every home!

But here we are men, on the 238^th anniversary of these United States and it is obvious that prayer is not as much a part of the fiber of our country as it was just a generation or two ago. This is happening on our watch and we need to take a stand on prayer for the sake of our nation and the next generation.

Please join me in praying this prayer daily for the men, husbands and fathers in our circles and beyond:

Our Father, hear our prayer ....read on

I got another one of those political calls the other night asking if I was a Republican or Democrat. I said, “I am an American.” She hung up on me. I had wanted to tell the caller about my new grassroots movement called the Unhyphenated American Party. Have you noticed that you can’t fill out a form anywhere without a series of boxes to determine what kind of American you are? I don’t see the point except possibly to benefit some special interests groups, which is a completely different discussion. Besides, my box is never there! My German grandfather and Russian grandmother were pushed out of Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1913. My mother’s family came over from Ireland a couple of generations earlier. But German-Russian-Irish-American never shows up on any forms!

America is a nation of immigrants. That has been our strength largely because ...read on