Be Strong and Show Yourself a Man:

A Conference on Biblical Manhood

With Dr. Randy Stinson

Executive Director, The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

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Topics Include:

Be Strong and Prove Yourself a Man: Defending and Cultivating Biblical Manhood

What Does It Look Like for a Man to Lead in His Home?

Raising Masculine Sons and Feminine Daughters

Joint Heirs in the Grace of Life: Warnings to Men as They Lead

WHERE: New Covenant Christian Fellowship, Attleboro, MA, 02703
>>>>>>> www.newcovfellowship.net

WHEN: Friday evening 7:00-9:00 March 23, 2012 &
>>>>>> Saturday 8:30-12:30 March 24, 2012

WHO: All men ages 12 and up

Suggested Donation: $20 Per Man; $10 for Young Men 12-18 years old

*Refreshments on Friday and Saturday are included!

Calculate your registration fee then register using the donate button above.

Questions? Contact Chap: chap[at]chapbettis.com

While you are here, check out a number of different things to help with family discipleship including: our blog, our list of favorite blog posts, our list of resources.

And then this video shows Jerusalem at the time of David. The focus of the video is on David’s palace. There is no temple built yet. It would have been further up the hill from the palace. You can see how he would look down over a (relatively) thin city built on the mountaintop.

[Dislike of doctrine] is an epidemic which is just now doing great harm, and specially among young people…. It produces what I must venture to call…a “jelly-fish” Christianity in the land: that is, a Christianity without bone, or muscle, or power.

A jelly-fish…is a pretty and graceful object when it floats in the sea, contracting and expanding like a little, delicate, transparent umbrella. Yet the same jelly-fish, when cast on the shore, is a mere helpless lump, without capacity for movement, self-defense, or self-preservation.

Alas! It is a vivid type of much of the religion of this day, of which the leading principle is, “No dogma, no distinct tenets, no positive doctrine.” We have hundreds of “jelly-fish” clergymen, who seem not to have a single bone in their body of divinity. They have not definite opinions; they belong to no school or party; they are so afraid of “extreme views” that they have no views at all. We have thousands of “jelly-fish” sermons preached every year, sermons without an edge, or a point, or a corner, smooth as billiard balls, awakening no sinner, and edifying no saint.

We have Legions of “jelly-fish” young men annually turned out from our Universities, armed with a few scraps of second-hand philosophy, who think it a mark of cleverness and intellect to have no decided opinions about anything in religion, and to be utterly unable to make up their minds as to what is Christian truth. They live apparently in a state of suspense, like Mohamet’s fabled coffin, hanging between heaven and earth…

And last, and worst of all, we have myriads of “jelly-fish” worshippers-respectable Church-going people, who have no distinct and definite views about any point in theology. They cannot discern things that  differ, any more than color-blind people can distinguish colors. They think everybody is right and nobody wrong, everything is true and nothing is false, all sermons are good and none are bad, every clergyman is sound and no clergyman is unsound. They are “tossed to and fro, like children, by every wind of doctrine”; often carried away by any new excitement and sensational movement; ever ready for new things, because they have no firm grasp on the old; and utterly unable to “render a reason of the hope that is in them.” …

Never was it so important for laymen to hold systematic views of truth, and for ordained ministers to “enunciate dogma” very clearly and distinctly in their teaching.

May we continue to grow in love of his Word.

How do we picture our Heavenly Father? This verse makes clear that, as a good father, God our Father takes delight in us. He rejoices over us with singing. That is an amazing type of love coming from the Holy One. Do you know that love of the Father? No doubt one of the reason God gives us children is to teach the fathers and mothers about his love for us. The same love we feel for them, the same delight we feel for them, he feels for us.

I still remember bringing home my first daughter from the hospital. My joy overflowed as I made up my own little ditty: “Kara Lee, You belong to me, You’re pretty as you can be, You’re Kara Lee.” That song came out of the overflow of a delighting heart.

But as they grow older, we can forget to delight in them. They tire us. Their sin fatigues us. The arguing or striving gets old. At that point it is easy to forget the delighting.

God has given you a unique individual made in his image. Yes, the image is broken. Yes, they bring trials. But they also bring great joy.

In Communion with the Triune God, John Owen argues that our communion with each member of the Trinity is in their love. So we know and think about God’s agape love, his self-generated love that depends not on the loveliness of the object but of the character of the lover. But Owen reminds us that God also loves us with the love of affection. God is affectionate toward us. God enjoys his fellowship with us.

As children of God and images of God to our children, we need to know and experience and share this love of affection. Your kids know that you love them. But do they know you like them? Do you like them?

Our Heavenly Father delights over you even when you are unlovely. Are you reflecting that love to your child? Study your child. Delight in their strengths. Let them know that you delight in them.

Father, I have not understood this love of affection that you have for me. Forgive me of my ignoring this great love. Help me to know it more and more. And forgive my parenting that “loves” my child without liking him or her. Help me delight over them, Show me how to express that affection for them.