Help Your Kids Love Their Enemies

What do you train your kids to think about and do about their enemies? Do they have enemies? Are your kids to affirm everyone?  Jesus gives parents and teachers surprising guidelines in the Sermon on the Mount.  Listen to learn more.

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Help Your Children Go the Extra Mile ini 2019

What is the last nice thing you did for someone who isn't nice to you?  Make sure to set your new year goal to do more. Listen to Jesus' encouragement for you as you train your children.

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The Best Christmas Gift to a Child is a Great Marriage

What do kids need the most this Christmas? One great need is a close example of sacrificial love found in a Christian marriage.  Can you give it to your children? Or can you find a school or church to help?  Listen to Christ's words about marriage from the Sermon on the Mount to bless you and your children.

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Is it settled? Training our Children This Christmas to Figure it Out Themselves

Have you been sued?  Do you think suing is the best solution to most disagreements?  Listen to Jesus' perspective and how to help teach your children how to settle matters without calling in an authority.

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Loving God is Loving Your Family This Christmas

Does it sound like Christmas when you open your mouth?  What do you sound like when you talk to and about your family? Do you sound loving and happy and wonderful? Do you sound pained and hateful? Listen to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount to help us speak God's way with our family...

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Stuck In Your Comfort Zone

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Christmas is here!
With Christmas comes the end of one year and the beginning of a new year.  Like hanging a new calendar for the new year, the beginning of a new year is the traditional time to evaluate our lives and commit to making some changes.
What were your New Year's Resolutions for 2018?
How long did they last before you gave up on them?
Have you learned that lesson and don't even set them anymore?

Let's look at this from another angle for 2019:
What is something that you have always wanted to accomplish, but have never given it a serious effort?
What is the biggest challenge you are facing in your marriage, profession, and personal character?
What would your life look like next Christmas if you...

1. Developed the courage to chase you life-long dream?
2. Face that big challenge that is keeping you from having the marriage of your dreams?
3. Stepped out and pursued your passion instead of just settling for a paycheck?
4. Attacked that "thing" that you really need to change about yourself (get back into shape, stop looking at porn, stop drinking, spend more time reading the Bible every week, etc.)?

Does that short list seem intimidating, or even impossible?  It isn't.  You will never completely turn your life around in one year, but it doesn't take an entire year to start replacing bad habits with good habits, either.  The key is to START!

There is a simple Success Formula that can help you get started and keep you going once you are in motion towards becoming the ideal you.  

Define--Learn--Do

Define

The first thing you need to do is to write down the answer to each of the 4 questions above, each on its own sheet of paper.

Be specific.  Give each one lots of thought and lots of detail.  The more detailed the better.

1. What is your dream?  What does your life look like when you get it?  What does it mean to the world when you get your dream?  Who do you have to become to get your dream?  Who do you have to serve?
2. What is your vision of the perfect marriage?  How do you feel every time you think about, or see you spouse?  How can you serve your spouse better?  What if you stopped thinking about your own needs and hurts so much, and focused entirely on serving your spouse's needs and stopped hurting her/him so much?
3. What are you passionate about?  How can you best use that passion to serve others, especially Jesus?  Is there already a company or organization that exists where you could maximize your passions and gifts, or do you need to step out and start something totally new that doesn't exist yet?
4. What is that one vice that you really hate about yourself?  Can you defeat it on your own, or do you need to get some help?  How is this one character failure negatively impacting every aspect of your life?  What would it feel like to be free of the grip it currently has on your life?

These questions are to help you get started.  This is what I meant when I wrote, "Be specific.  Give each one lots of thought and lots of detail.  The more detailed the better."  Don't limit yourself to these questions, but recognize that this is something you need to spend some time on.  Don't be intimidated by the process, but don't just breeze through it either.  The more effort you put into this step, the easier and more successful the next two steps will be.

The "Define" step is critical.  Until you truly define what you want your life to look like and commit to putting it down on paper, nothing in your life will change for the better (with the exception of the rare "happy accident").  This Success Formula is a mere 3-step process.  If you don't have the character and work ethic to do just 3 things, then success isn't in the cards for you.  I know that right about now some of you are making excuses to yourself why you aren't even going to attempt this.  That's why I titled this article STUCK In Your Comfort Zone.  

You're not where you are in life because it's where you want to be (although you have chosen it).  You're there because you've gotten lazy and complacent.  You give more time to making excuses and justifying your failures than you do setting goals and chasing them.  When is the last time you actually set a goal?

This is the way you change all of that.  This is the way you break out of your Comfort Zone and begin to realize the incredible potential God has placed in you from your conception.  This is how you live your God-given purpose!  

There is also one other thing to keep in mind here:

You can't do any of this on your own.  You will daily need to lean on God for His help and guidance.  Remember, according to St. Paul "...you have been called according to His purpose."  It's ultimately not our own purpose we seek to accomplish, but His.  The ultimate goal is to glorify Him, not ourselves.  This is actually one of the reasons to begin this process- it helps us to realize how feeble we all are, and how much we need the Lord God Almighty who created each and every one of us.

Learn

Congratulations!  You have made it to step two.  For some of you, this step may be the most challenging because you just took the time to clearly define what you want your life to look like at the end of 2019, but now what?  If you already knew how to have the life you wanted- you would already have the life you want.  Make sense?

That's the enigma the LEARN step unravels.  This step is built on another simple 3-step process:  READ--LISTEN--ASSOCIATE.  Albert Einstein said, "You can't fix your current problems with the same level of thinking that created them."  This actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

Up to this point we have all made, what we felt at the time, to be the best choices.  The problem is that time has proven how unwise too many of those choices were.  If we were able to go back in time 10 or 20 years, there are numerous choices that we would make differently based on what we know now.  

This is ultimately the advantage that READ--LISTEN--ASSOCIATE gives us.  It allows us to learn from people throughout the ages to make better decisions today.

Reading is the crucial key to this whole process, and to any real education and personal growth.  Reading is the way that we make permanent and lasting changes within ourselves.  Once you have done the DEFINE step, reading is the how to start putting it together.  Books are a true blessing from God.  Good books are the collection of human wisdom from thousands of years ago to the present age.  Everything we need to know about turning our DEFINE into reality is written in a book someplace.  You just need to find it.  

Reading is the foundation of all great education and great learning.  Any reading program must start with the Bible.  God's Word is the foundation of all wisdom and our ultimate purpose- How we can  best serve Jesus.

After the Bible, I would suggest the Antioch Academy's TOP 50 Booklist to get your reading program started.

Listening is the next component to learning.  You have to find a quality audio training program that you can plug into every day.  You need to listen to at least 3-5 personal development audios every day.  This is essential for your education and growth.  

Audios are versatile.  You can listen to them while you're driving.  You can listen while you're working out.  You can listen while you are doing anything else.  This is a huge advantage over reading.  You can listen to an audio anytime, anywhere.  It's what Rob Robson calls NET learning- No Extra Time.  Listening to quality audios is something you can do while you're doing the stuff you are already doing.  Simple!  Easy!  So what are you waiting for?  Need some suggestions for this too?  Okay.

• Downloadable Audios from the Antioch Academy for Christian Discipleship
• Rascal Radio (from LIFE Leadership)
• Christ for Disciplers podcast

The final piece is Associate.  There are a couple of ways to accomplish this piece.

1. Leadership Challenge Groups
2. Mentor/Coaching
3. Accountability Partner
4. Seminars and Classes
5. Small Group Bible study

The purpose of association is to help you get uncomfortable with being the "old" you.  Good association will encourage you to keep working at your plan.  It will help you see your victory in the victories of others.  Good association will help you kill bad habits by spending more time with positive people who will encourage you.  The power of association is often underestimated when it comes to making changes in our lives, big or small.  

This is ultimately what church is all about.  It's a regular meeting of like minded individuals who encourage each other and worship God together.  There's a reason the Bible tells us not to give up meeting together.  Friends, family, and mentors are all a blessing from God.  We need to get around positive, like-minded people often to help us recharge our batteries and re-energize us for the daily pursuit of our purpose.

Finally, a mentor/coach/accountability partner is crucial.  We have to have someone that we can meet with and talk to who has more results in life than we do.  We need someone who can see our struggles from the outside and help us to re-frame our situation.  Their advice and perspective is priceless.  Having a mentor is a huge shortcut in the process of change.  Finding someone who is truly qualified to mentor you can be a challenge, but it is worth all the effort it takes to do so.  Fortunately, the old saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears", has more truth to it than most people realize.  When you commit to your journey of changing yourself and your associations, the right person to mentor you will show up when you least expect it.  Keep your eyes and ears open!

DO

Finally, how do you put it all together?
At the LEARN step you are starting to do some things, but don't get fooled by that activity.  The DO step is about actually working on your plan.  This is the piece that takes courage.  This is where you ask for help, have those difficult conversations, discipline yourself to kill bad habits and work to form new good habits.
This is where you do the physical work of changing.
Orrin Woodward has developed a 4-step process for change and growth called Plan-Do-Check-Adjsut (PDCA).  This is the process that you will learn to master, because it is the process to change and grow in anything.

Plan

Once you have defined what you want to change, and what you want the outcome to look like, you need to make a gameplan.  This is made up of small goals and the steps you are going to take to achieve them.

Your big goal is what you want to achieve by the end of 2019.  In order to get there, you have to break that big goal down into 30-day goals.  This is where you define the specific tasks that must be accomplished by the end of this month to keep moving you towards your BIG goal.

DO

This step is pretty simple: DO your plan!

CHECK

This is the step where you take an honest look at what you have been doing.  Recognize what's working and what isn't.  Don't fall into the trap of looking at the results of your work to support what you already thought.  You need to be honest about your results.  It's okay if things didn't work out the way you thought they would.
Maybe your plan is solid- you just have to get better at doing it.  Where do you need to develop and improve skill sets?  One of the reasons why many of the things you are doing are outside of your comfort zone is because you aren't very good at them.  As your skills increase, so will your comfort level and effectiveness.

It will also be helpful for you to think through this step with your mentor.  This is a place where he will see things that you don't, and he can offer another perspective on the feedback you are getting from doing your plan.

Adjust

That brings us to the final step- ADJUST.  This is where you take your feedback from the CHECK step and make the necessary adjustments to your plan.  Then it's just a matter of running the PDCA process for another 30 days...for the next 12 months.  You will PDCA your way to a brand new you for next Christmas.  Let that be your Christmas present to yourself, and the world, next year.

I don't know if that seems too easy to be true, or if it sounds like way too much work to even get started; but you can be sure of one thing:  If you do nothing to change in 2019, nothing will change for the better in 2019!

Beat the New Year's rush and get started today!

Merry Christmas!

Jason Fredrick

For Us And For Our Children -- Is a Rule a Rule?

Is living 99% for your God enough?  Most think it is more than enough -- but Jesus disagrees.  He calls us to strive for Him and to train our kids to do the same.

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You and Your Children Getting a Bit Salty this Christmas?

Do you stand out from those around you that aren’t Christians?  Do your Children? If someone tried to convict you of being Christian would there be enough evidence to convict you?  God calls us to be noticeable and notice. Listen for God’s encouragement...

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To Be Called Children of God

How would your children answer if asked, “Who are you?”  Trained to say I’m a child of God loved and saved by Jesus… but do they know, feel and act that.

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What's On the Inside of Our Children Lasts

It is good to be concerned about our children’s academics and activities, but how do we change what is on the inside?  The inside is what will last for the rest of their lives and for eternity. Listen for ideas...

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Blessed by the Best

Jesus lets us know where true Christmas blessings come from -- from God's working on our spirit and heart.

Continue to train the spirit of your children to ready them for God's daily and eternal blessings.

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Sit Down With Your Family and Jesus

Jesus came at Christmas to spend time with us.  When many people gathered to meet with Jesus, he delivered what is called the Sermon on the Mount and taught his followers how to live a thankful life of discipleship.

This Christmas season we take time for our family to spend time with Jesus and listening to Jesus best know sermon is a great way to do it.

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Use Gifts to Train the Next Generation

The Magi gave gifts to Jesus and his family.  We train our children and set the example of how to give gifts of thanks to our God who has given us everything.

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Will Education Exclude Your Children from Jesus?

Jesus did not come just for poor, uneducated, Jewish shepherds.  The educated Magi also were part of God's plan.

We might fear if our children get to educated that their education may not be compatible with following Jesus.  Instead we need to act and solidify the biblical worldview of our children and disciple them as well as we educate them on God's world.

We want the next generation that follows Jesus to have all the tools God has supplied them with ready to use for God's kingdom.

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Teach Your Children to Count on Promises

When the Magi visited Jesus, Herod simply had to look in the Bible to see where God promised he would be born.  God kept his detailed promises by how he sent Jesus.  In fact there are so many promises in the Old Testament that Jesus fulfilled that the odds that any one would do so make it virtually impossible.

As we get ready for Christmas, we marvel at how God kept his promises and we look forward to God keeping his promises to bless our children and deliver this world.  We strive to train our children to trust God's promises by teaching them they can trust our promises.

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Who in Your Family is Disturbed?

Herod was disturbed and ready for violence when he heard someone might put Jesus as king ahead of him. Still today we and our children will face those that are threatened by Jesus and threaten because of Jesus.  We need to train the next generation to be ready.

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God is Always Working

The Magi in Matthew 2 hold lots of mysteries, but we do know that God did the work to get them the message so they could worship Jesus.  God still often works in little ways that we cannot see to build his kingdom.  The little things we do for our children are examples of how God may do big, visible things in the future.

We need to train our children to see the quiet little things of life are the normal way that God does most of his amazing work through and to us.

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Give it Up For Jesus

Joseph sacrificed to be the "father" of Jesus.  He sets the example for fathers today to sacrifice for their families.

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Believe the Unbelievable Because It's True

Joseph believed the message that his bride to be, Mary, was pregnant by the Holy Spirit.  God asks us to believe this core truth of Christianity that Jesus is true God and true man at the same time.

We disciple the next generation by training them that following Jesus means not expecting what God tells us to make sense.

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That's A Bad Suprise

Joseph showed good character, grace and faith in the difficult situation of hearing his bride to be, Mary, was pregnant.  He did the right thing.

That pattern is one to learn from for fathers and parents and one to train our children for.

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Who's Your Daddy?

Most Americans don't know more than three generations back from them.  The Bible records 52 generations for Jesus making sure we know he was a real person who came as a fulfillment of God's promises.

We strive to train the next generation so that if the world lasts 52 more generations, the message of Jesus will still be shared.

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God So Loved the World...He Promised a Savior

Have you ever made a promise to someone?
How well did you keep your promise?

Has anyone ever promised something to you?
How well did they keep their promise?

We have all made promises that we didn't keep; just as we have all had people make promises to us that were broken.  Fortunately, God is faithful and He keeps EVERY promise that He has ever made.

When Adam and Eve fell into sin in the Garden of Eden God cursed the serpent, then Eve, and then Adam; but in that process He also gave the first promise of a Savior:

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel." -Genesis 3:15

God didn't fulfill that promise right away.  This initial promise was made around 4000 B.C.  Through those 4000 years God continually renewed His covenant (promise) with His people.

From Noah to Abraham to Jacob to Moses to David, and many in between and after.  Even in the final centuries of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah God continued to be faithful to that promise.  The prophet Isaiah foretold of the virgin birth around 700 B.C:

Therefore the LORD Himself will give you a sign:  "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." -Isaiah 7:14

Then around 4 or 5 B.C., an angel appeared to a lowly maiden.  She was just an ordinary girl.  She would still be among the multitudes of unknown people who have walked the earth before us had God not chosen her to fulfill His promise:

The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you."

"Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  You will be with child and will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." -Luke 1:28-33

So here in the first chapter of Luke we see God finally giving a set time when He would fulfill this promise.  Notice how when he first made the promise He never told anyone when it would be fulfilled.  He just said that it would happen.  For thousands of years, people were saved by their faith in this promise.  They believed  God would send a Savior who would redeem all people from their sins.

For us, we are saved by the faith that Jesus is the Savior; that He has redeemed us from the power of sin, death, and hell.  We no longer have to trust a promise of a future Savior.  That promise has been fulfilled, we just need to believe it.  We just need to believe that Jesus fulfilled that promise exactly as the Bible tells us:

• He was born of a virgin.
• He lived a perfect, sinless life as a real human being.
• He died on the cross to pay the penalty for all sin:  for every sin, of every person, of all time (past, present, and future).
• Jesus conquered death for us on Easter morning when He raised from the dead, in the flesh, and ascended into heaven where He lives and reigns for all eternity.

We no longer await the fulfillment of God's promise to send a Savior, but He has given us a promise that we do look forward to being fulfilled:  Jesus Christ is coming back again to judge the world and to take us to heaven to live and reign with Him for all eternity.  And to that we say, "Come, Lord Jesus!  Amen!"

God bless 

Jason Fredrick

Who are Your Children Related to?

Jesus' birth is history and we teach it to our children as history - history they are connected to.  They are connected to Jesus not only the by impact of his arrival but also by their DNA.

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