As fathers, we all want to see our children succeed—often hoping they’ll go further and achieve more than we ever have. That desire is noble and true to the heart of a father.

But here’s the question: Are we giving them what they need to truly succeed?

King David knew his son Solomon was chosen to build the temple. And before Solomon ever laid a stone, David began making provisions—gathering resources, laying plans, and preparing the way—so his son could fulfill the calling on his life.

“With all my resources I have provided for the temple of my God… Besides, in my devotion to the temple of my God I now give my personal treasures…”
—1 Chronicles 29:2–3

The beauty and greatness of the temple are credited to Solomon, but the foundation of provision and preparation came from his father.

Fathers, it’s up to us to prepare the way.
It’s up to us to make provision for our children’s future.
It’s up to us to call out the men our sons are becoming.

We must teach them how to pray, how to stand firm on the Word of God.
We must show our sons what it means to be a man of integrity, and show our daughters what it means to be valued, protected, and loved rightly.

Success doesn’t happen by accident. Legacy is intentional.
Let’s build it—just like David did—for the next generation.

In Psalms 118:8 which is the center of the Bible we learn that “it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man” if your confidence is in man he will let you down he will fail you but my Jesus Christ the living son of God will never fail you. If you feel he has because you have not received the answer you wanted just remember sometimes his answer is no and sometimes it is wait. He wants to see your faith in action. The writer of Hebrews gives great examples of faith in action inHebrews chapter 11 as he tells of the faith of the great men and women of God. Just trust in God and allow him to work in your life and he will work things out for you.

Who am I that the king of glory would die in my stead.

I am nothing more than a sinner most deserving of death but to this king of grace and mercy I was worth more than life itself.

This Man so blameless took on himself my sins an bore them upon an alter fixed between earth and heaven.

He died a death that was meant for me.

He was beaten, bruised, and nailed to the cross between two criminals, the most shameful of punishments of the time.

If it’s not enough that the religious leaders are they who wanted his death but one of his disciples a man he had spent 3.5 years with has sold him for 30pieces of silver.

The price of a dead slave.

Just a week prior they had sang his praise but today they mock him to scorn.

Just last week they shouted hosanna but today they cried crucify.

Just last week they accepted him with open arms but today they traded him for a man that is know as a murderer and thief.

As he hang their between earth and heaven the sky grew dark and as the weight of the sins of all the earth placed on his shoulders his father had to turn his back.

He could not bear to look at his son in this situation.

Yes at any moment he could have said I’m done, I can’t go own.

Yes he could have smote everyone who beat, mocked him to death with a single word.

Though he had that authority he looked almost 2000 years in the future and saw me.

He saw you.

The love he had for us was greater than the torment.

He has completed the mission he was given.

The sacrificial lamb was slain.

The blood was spilled for our salvation.

He was laid in a tomb that was borrowed.

You may ask why a borrowed tomb?

prior to his death he said you can destroy this temple but it will be rebuilt in 3 days.

Remembering this the Pharisees got scared and demanded the tomb be guarded.

A little much for someone who they believed to be a blasphemer.

The sabbath has came and gone and now on the morning of the third day There can be see women heading to the tomb but they notice something strange.

The stone had been moved.

Not only was the stone rolled away but the tomb was empty

I am beyond filled with joy to be able to tell you that that man was victorious over death, hell, and the grave and he is alive forever more.

I love to get up in the mornings and enjoy a cup of coffee, but sometimes I wake up and I’m just not feeling it these mornings I feel like the poster child of “I don’t want to adult today.” It’s these days that I have a hard time getting motivated I just don’t want to deal with the day at all. After countless times hitting the snooze button I finally role out of bed.

Today was one of these days and it seems like everything is getting on my nerves today. I have to keep reminding myself that I am alive, the God of the universe allowed me to have breath in my lungs. It may not seem like a great day that I have described to you but I wouldn’t trade it for the best day as a sinner. I can look forward and say that I will get through today by the grace of GOD he will help me to see the day though. I don’t know what tomorrow holds but I have faith in the one who holds it in his hands.

I have faith that no matter the struggle of tomorrow God will help me through and if he will do that for me EVEN me then surely God will do the same for you.

God has been dealing with me in two areas that I, personally, feel I have failed tremendously. These two being evangelism and discipleship. I had allowed myself to become isolated to the same group of people and the same four walls. I was a well that had become stagnant.

Coming from the northern part of Florida, we have always had a major problem with mosquitoes; the biggest reason is because we have areas where water becomes trapped and can be a breeding ground for them. Spiritually, I had become a lifeless body of water that brought about more problems than I could handle. I would complain and complain about everything and I felt as if I had become an annoying mosquito.

When people would try to tell me, “you need to not do that,” I would use my recent situation to tell them I was allowed to be mad. I would go  to church, teach Sunday school, play guitar, sit through the preaching and then go home. I was honestly just going through the motions. I looked like a river, but the closer you would get, the more you would see I had become inactive. I was always taking and I would never give of myself fully. I created a strain on the movement of the gospel and I was not contributing in any way. I had to come to the realization of one of the hardest things and admit, “I WAS WRONG.”

One of the biggest things that helped me to see my fault, was that we had new members at our church that were mission minded. Another thing that helped me was that I went to a Bible Study with my girlfriend and one statement that one of the guys made was that, “create disciples that create disciples.” They kept asking everyone if they found the one person in their life that they could pour into and bring them to Christ, then into discipleship for Christ. Just like the flip of a switch, God spoke to me and said, “this is what my church is for.”

I went home that night and began to study discipleship, witnessing and evangelizing. I allowed God to use His words to take over my entire being with a want and need to tell someone about Christ and also, to help my brothers and sisters to grow with me into His disciples.

Discipleship is more than a class. It is living life with those around you and keeping each other accountable to the spiritual growth of each person for the advancement of God’s kingdom.

It doesn’t take many people to make a difference. You may be the change that the world needs.

Most everyone can recite John 3:16.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that who so ever believes on him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

We see the word love here and we never really apply the full weight to the word that is intended with this verse we use this verse almost as a cop out in Ministry it seems to be the go to in an evangelical setting. I am by no means saying not to use John 3:16 but I am asking have you ever sat down and thought about the power that is behind these words. Have we ever looked into the meaning behind this single verse.

The word love here is agapaō which is a word that refers to an unconditional love. A love that no matter what we do is always there for us. We didn’t deserve salvation yet God allowed his ONLY SON to suffer and die as a criminal the most embarrassing form of cruel death that the Romans could put Christ through.

Christ went through what he did so that we could have life eternal. What exactly did Christ endure?

Someone he viewed as a friend, a brother, sold him out to the Pharisees.

• The Pharisees wanted him gone.
• The Pharisees were the leaders of the Synagogue they “wrote” the rules of how to be a righteous man. In fact there were so many laws no man could fully follow the law even themselves. The amount of laws they created were staggering and many of them had harsh punishments as the consequences. People fears them instead of God.

Christ came to fulfill the law that God handed down to Moses.

Christ would come and minister to those that the Jewish law declared unfit for the kingdom of God.

Eventually Judas sold Jesus and he would ultimately lead his captors to Jesus.

Jesus would stand trial and he would be sentenced to be beat by whips.

Jesus was beat to such a point as to which Jesus back had flesh ripped away and was unrecognizable. Pilot thought this was enough but the Pharisees pushed to have him crucified.

Christ had to carry his cross about a mile to the top of the hill but then we have the story of the man pulled out of the crowd to carry Jesus’ cross. The remainder of the way.

At this point Jesus is suffering from a severe loss of blood his back is so tore up you can see internal organs and he still has to lay down on the alter of wood (the cross) before 9 inch nails would be driven through the wrist at a point that would damage the ligaments making it impossible to support with his arms and to make maters worse another nail was though his feet. He couldn’t pull himself up he couldn’t push himself up he could only arch his back to catch short shallow breaths which probably took his breath by the pain more than what he. Pull take in the pain and way he was hanging would cause shallow breathing. All while he is still continuing to lose his blood. At the point of Christ final words Christ would have almost completely bled out that along with the shear agony that Christ went through a mortal man would have never made it to the top of Calvary.

The next time you here the words for God so love just imagine if you’re a parent sending your child to die for someone who doesn’t deserve it.

I know for a fact I would never b able to do that and I am not a parent at this time.

When you realize that God wanted us to enjoy the splendor of heaven in the way he created that he allowed for his only son to die and suffer for us.

Talking about an unconditional love.

A merciful savior who would die for us to have grace everlasting. And we take it for granted we go through our day we might say a couple generic prayers skim over a few verses but we need to just sit down and be consumed by the power of who God is in our life and be consumed by what was accomplished for us through Christ on Calvary.

God not only Called us to witness but he also called us to make disciples.

Gaining new converts alone is only a third of the gospel, we are called to make disciples out of them.

Many times in churches all over the world we see as churches will make new converts and throw them to the wolves. Yet churches wonder why people will come and go and it seems as though people can’t stay motivated to continue in the faith while they are yet babes in Christ.

As the church it is OUR fault we have failed in the area of discipleship. Discipleship is not just a 12 week course and turn them loose to teach their own 12 week courses. Discipleship is a lifetime commitment to a life of accountability between believers. For a church to grow it must first look at the church and ask “are we creating disciples or are we creating converts?”

Once we get them converted we should help to aline them with someone that can pour into their life. Men should pour into other men and likewise women should pour into the women.

Sunday school and Bible study is very much part of the process but we should come together to discuss what we learned in our own private study and continue to encourage each other to dig deep into the word of God a feast on it and make it apart of our life so that when the time comes we can pour out of ourselves into that new convert.

Churches don’t grow disciples. Disciples grow churches.

When Christ was forming his 12 disciples he

• taught them through experience of the gospel first hand
• He asked questions that made them think and dwell on the things that they had experienced
• He held them accountable for all they did
• He treated them as his family not his students
• And many more

If we are to be successful in building a church we must first make disciples.

And to successfully create disciples we must learn from the best disciple maker Christ.

Growing up in church it was not uncommon to hear the dear saints of God tell the new converts to offer up praise and worship to God but the one thing they failed to mention is why and what they were worshiping God for.

We are to worship God because of his eternal power. We are to praise him for his mercy and grace that was showed even when we were undeserving.

I remember sitting in the church and listening to the testimony services and I would sit in awe of what many of the people where able to say God brought them out of whether it was alcoholism, drug addiction you name it but whatever it was these people where excited to offer up praise and worship to God for what he didn’t there life.

In that same sense I wanted to say something for God but I didn’t have some great story of God saving me and pulling me out of the deepest darkest hole of addiction but then I realized that my testimony was just as powerful and the people needed to know that not only can God save you and bring you out but he is more than sufficient to keep us. My praise and worship became about how glad I was that God was able to keep me and protect me from harm. As I began to offer praise for the “little” things it was easier to have faith that God could keep me through it all.

But there came a day that I would have to put that faith to the ultimate test.

I would have to see my own life crumble as someone who would make a vowel would forget about that vowel and I would be thrown into the ring and it seemed as though I had to take hit after hit until I would grasp the ropes pull myself up and begin to praise the God who would give me strength to make it through the hardest thing I would have to deal with.i am able to look back and say if it wasn’t for God I would have fallen if I hadn’t learned int the small trials to praise God I wouldn’t have known to do so then. Like the song says we need to praise him through the storm.

In the book of Job we see a man that was righteous before God and was blessed beyond measure. He was wealthy. Although he was wealthy you never seen him take the praise on himself for creating his wealth he would always step back and say that God gave him the wealth.

One day Satan goes before God and In o many words tells God that if I can take away everything from him he will curse God. He charges Job with the statement he only follows because of the blessings.

As we read on Job

Loses His kids all 7

Loses His love stock

He is overcome with sores

His “his friends” accuse him of sining against God

His wife tells him to curse God and die.

Jobs life is falling apart. Yet he continues to follow God.

We see at the end of the book that GOD RESTORED JOB. He restored Job beyond what Job had at the beginning.

What ever you go through for the sake of the gospel God will bring you through it.

March of 2018 it felt as if my world came crashing down. I found myself in a low spot in my life. I felt like I lost everything but little did I know that in the end of everything that was going on that God would help me.

I became triumphant over my trial

I was given a testimony from that test

I am able to tell you that I am thankful for the restoring power of Christ.

He truly is an awesome God and I can’t thank him or praise him enough for what he did for me.

In life there comes a time when we are face to face with a storm that we feel like we cannot over come. I am here to reassure you that no matter the storm if we call upon the name of Jesus and have faith that he has all power he will see us through the storm that we are in no matter what it is.

As we look in the Bible we see the Disciples as they are in a panic and not knowing what to do it is absolutely crazy aboard the vessel the boat is being thrown back and forth crashing over tops of massive waves and all the while they have the one who can give peace aboard the vessel with them and some how just some how Jesus is sleeping through all of this. SLEEPING!!! In the midst of the panic and in a moment of desperation they call out to Jesus and he awakes and speaks to the storm and just simply says “Peace! be still” and the waters become calm and the storm dissipated.

Remember that the storm is there to strengthen us in our walk with Christ. If we let it.

I have had my share of storms in my young adult life and had it not been for Christ I would not have made it. I am glad that I was able to cry out to Jesus and like Peter just as I was going under Jesus came on the scene held out his hand to pull me out of the water and I am able to look back today and say that He is a gracious and merciful savior.

What he did in my life I could not earn it and I am surly not worthy enough through myself to have Christ to show me his unmerited favor in me. He knew I would fail him yet he still went to the cross and died ,a most dishonorable death that was designed to be a curse to the most hardened of criminal, and he did that for me and for you for those times we find ourselves in that storm of life there is grace and mercy enough to Cary us through to tomorrow.