A Man's Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines: 12 Habits to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ - Hardcover

Morley, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802475515 ISBN 13: 9780802475510

Verlag: MOODY PUBL, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Spiritual disciplines are to the believer what medical school is to the doctor. "A man came up to me at a conference where I was speaking and said, 'Pat, do me a favor. Tell me how to be good. I already know how bad I am.'"

That statement captures the intent of this book and the purpose of the spiritual disciplines. Spiritual strength, like surgical skill or athletic excellence, requires training and practice. To become the kind of man who walks with God and wields Christ’s influence in your world, you’ll want to begin a consistent regimen of spiritual exercises.

In A Man’s Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines, Patrick Morley highlights twelve habits that will strengthen your walk with Christ, including:

• Experiencing God in creation
• Letting the Bible change your life
• Learning the power of prayer
• Grasping God’s greatness through worship
• Gaining strength through Sabbath
• Thriving because of fellowship
• Succeeding through wise counsel

By presenting each discipline with a concise overview, several examples, and application ideas to get you going, this powerful guidebook will help you develop the maturity every man of God was designed to reflect.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

PATRICK MORLEY founded Man in the Mirror in 1991, a ministry that has helped 35,000 churches impact the lives of twelve million men worldwide. Their vision is "for every church to disciple every man". He is the author of Man in the Mirror which was selected as one of the hundred most influential Christian books of the twentieth century. Patrick has written twenty books, 750 articles, has appeared on several hundred radio and television programs, and has a daily one minute radio program on 700 stations. He graduated from the University of Central Florida as well as Reformed Theological Seminary. He has earned a Ph.D. in management, completed through postgraduate studies at the Harvard Business School and Oxford University. He lives in Winter Park, Florida, with his wife, Patsy. His ministry websites are www.maninthemirror.org and www.PatrickMorley.com.

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Spiritual disciplines are to the believer what medical school is to the doctor.

A man came up to me at a conference where I was speaking and said, “Pat, do me a favor. Tell me how to be good. I already know how bad I am.”

That statement captures the intent of this book – and the purpose of the spiritual disciplines. Spiritual strength, like surgical skill or athletic excellence, requires training and practice. To become the kind of man who walks with God and wields Christ’s influence in your world, you’ll want to begin a consistent regimen of spiritual exercises.

In A Man’s Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines, Patrick Morley highlights twelve habits that will strengthen your walk with Christ, including:

-- Experiencing God in creation
-- Letting the Bible change your life
-- Learning the power of prayer
-- Grasping God’s greatness through worship
-- Gaining strength through Sabbath
-- Thriving because of fellowship
-- Succeeding through wise counsel
-- And more . . .

By presenting each discipline with a concise overview, several examples, and application ideas to get you going, this powerful guidebook will help you develop the maturity every man of God was designed to reflect.

Aus dem Klappentext

“Spiritual disciplines are the regular practices men cultivate when they want a closer walk with Christ.  The spiritual disciplines can help us break a cycle or get out of a rut.  Disciplines are the spiritual habits by which we cultivate a deeper relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth.  We perform the disciplines because we want to please God, to lead peaceable lives, to be godly husbands, to raise godly children, and to be men of God." 

“An athlete who lifts weights as part of a training regimen probably doesn’t lift just because he loves pumping iron.  He probably wants to improve his strength and endurance (and possibly his appearance).  Similarly, the disciplines are not ends in themselves—they are a means to an end."

“Spiritual disciplines do nothing to improve your record with God.  We don’t perform the disciplines to make God happy (or avoid His wrath), or to earn favor or merit with God.  All the merit we need, we already have in Christ.  We place our trust in God—not in the disciplines."

 “Nevertheless, disciplines demonstrate to God how serious we are about following Him, and they also help us see how serious we are as well.  When all is said and done, spiritual disciplines are the designated means for us to grown in this relationship that we have with Jesus.  God is always speaking, so if we don’t hear Him, it’s not because He has suddenly gone silent.  It is more likely that we aren’t listening—or perhaps don’t know how to listen.”
—From A Man’s Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines

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A MAN'S GUIDE TO THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES

12 HABITS TO STRENGTHEN YOUR WALK WITH CHRISTBy PATRICK MORLEY

Moody Publishers

Copyright © 2007 Patrick Morley
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8024-7551-0

Contents

Acknowledgments.........................................................9A Guide to Group Discussion.............................................11An Introduction to the Spiritual Disciplines 15Part 1: Discipline Related to the Works of God1. A Man and Creation...................................................21Part 2: Discipline Related to the Word Of God2. A Man and the Bible..................................................35Part 3: Disciplines Related to the "Whisper" of God3. A Man and Prayer.....................................................494. A Man and Worship....................................................655. A Man and the Sabbath................................................816. A Man and Fellowship.................................................937. A Man and Counsel....................................................1058. A Man and Fasting....................................................1179. A Man and Spiritual Warfare..........................................129Part 4: Disciplines Related to a Witness for God10. A Man and Stewardship...............................................14111. A Man and Service...................................................15512. A Man and Evangelism................................................167Afterword...............................................................183Notes...................................................................185

Chapter One

A MAN AND CREATION

PREVIEW

In this chapter we will examine what God says about His creation. We'll:

See how nature reveals God's character.

Learn why it's important to cultivate an attitude of enjoying God's creation.

Consider positive ways to begin incorporating this discipline into daily life.

Let's begin this chapter with a brief pop quiz to test your creation IQ.

1. Circle the answer that best reflects how you regard creation. Creation is:

Good Evil Neutral

2. Which of the following answers best describes the relationship between creation (nature, the universe) and God?

a. Nature hints of God.

b. Nature reveals God.

c. Nature conceals God.

d. Nature tarnishes God.

Let's explore how the Bible answers these two questions.

The Bible on Nature

When C. S. Lewis was an atheist, he explained why he didn't believe in God. He wrote,

Look at the universe we live in. By far the greatest part of it consists of empty space, completely dark and unimaginably cold.... It is improbable that any planet except the Earth sustains life. And Earth herself existed without life for millions of years and may exist without life for millions more when life has left her. And what is it like while it lasts? It is so arranged that all the forms of it can live only by preying upon one another.... In the most complex of all the creatures, Man, yet another quality appears, which we call reason.... It enables men by a hundred ingenious contrivances to inflict a great deal more pain than they otherwise could have done on one another and on the irrational creatures. This power they have exploited to the full. Their history is largely a record of crime, war, disease, and terror, with just sufficient happiness interposed to give them, while it lasts, an agonized apprehension of losing it, and, when it is lost, the poignant misery of remembering....

There was one question which I never dreamed of raising.... If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? Men are fools, perhaps; but hardly so foolish as that.

So is creation good, evil, or neutral? Author Leonard Sweet helps us uncover the answer in his book Soul Tsunami, in which he describes his family buying their first television set. His mother was a traveling evangelist, and their church was quite legalistic. The Sweet family bought the set when TVs first became available. One night there came a knock on the door. The pastor had dropped by the house to visit, and the TV happened to be on.

The pastor peered in and said, "So it's true. You have bought the devil's blinking box." Leonard's mother argued that matter is not evil-it's what people do with matter that makes it evil. Still, the Sweet family was put out of the church for having the "devil's blinking box."

Mrs. Sweet was right. Matter itself is not evil. Nothing in God's creation is evil-not thunder, lightning, storms, movies, or television signals. And yet, because of the fall, thunder can scare your children, lightning can hit your home and start a fire, storm winds can split a tree that then crashes into your living room, movies can debase human beings made in God's image, and television can bring profanity to your ears and lust to your eyes.

Nevertheless, the Bible says, "The whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:3, emphasis added). Now, this used to really bother me, because when we look around we see a lot of evil. We also see a third force at work in the world: futility, or that which simply doesn't matter. I wondered, How could the earth be full of God's glory when there is so much evil and futility?

Then one day, while studying glucose, I was struck with an analogy. Glucose is a three-part compound: [C.sub.6] [H.sub.12] [O.sub.6]-six parts carbon, twelve parts hydrogen, six parts oxygen. So glucose is full of oxygen, but not only oxygen; it is also full of carbon and hydrogen. In the same way, the earth really is full of God's glory, despite the fact that it is also full of evil and futility.

The Bible also says, "For everything God created is good" (1 Timothy 4:4). Colossians 1:16 goes even further,

For by [Jesus] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

So the bottom line in Scripture is this: (1) God made everything. (2) Everything God made is good. Therefore, (3) everything is intrinsically good. That implies that nature has meaning and value. This is not to say that nature is incorruptible. Because of the fall we have to explain the stench of polluted rivers, belching smokestacks, and natural disasters. What the Bible does mean, however, is that apart from sin, nature is good. According to his wife, Edith, theologian/philosopher Francis Schaeffer would often say, "There is a lot of leftover beauty in nature." Or as Sam said to Frodo at a point of despair in the movie adaptation of The Two Towers, (book two of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy), "There's some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for."

For our belief system to hold together, we must explain evil, but, frankly, that's not very hard. Evil wasn't part of the original plan. The answer lies in the fall. The fall of man and woman introduced every evil and bad thing that exists in creation. You'll find that event recorded in Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve were tempted and sinned. We've been sinning ever since.

Now back to question #1: Is creation good, evil, or neutral? What's...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: MOODY PUBL
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0802475515
• ISBN 13: 9780802475510
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 186
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Moody Publishers; https://www.moodypublishers.com; ; 820 NORTH LASALLE BLVD.; CHICAGO; IL; 60610; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar