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This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Man Talk brought to you by TAWCMM, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Well, welcome back to Man Talk Radio. This is Roy Jones, one of your hosts.
And I'm Will Hardy, the other guy. Will, it's so good to see you again. I hope you're doing well. Yeah, God is good. You know, we just, we had a blessed time today on the Christian Fellowship Group. We were sharing just a little bit of that earlier, you know, how God blessed and we were talking about spiritual sacrifices and you know, this is something that we just got to do as Christians. Yeah, and I think in this day and time where there's so many things that men have got to step up and start doing and realize that it's not about themselves, right? We talk about that continually. It's about the other person. It should be about your family.
It should be about everyone else instead of me. And sacrificing is part of that journey, right? Indeed. And I think another component that men need to realize is that you indeed have a purpose.
You do. And if you're a follower of Christ, you know, there should be purpose to your life. And if you're out there of the world and in the world, then you may not understand what your purpose is. But if you're a follower of Christ, you should definitely have identified what your purpose in life is. You know, because a lot of people, Roy, they say, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing in Christ. You know, now that I'm a born again believer, you know, I can't articulate the Bible and all this other stuff. But you know, it's not about articulating the Bible when you are a new born again believer. You simply just tell what you know.
And that's like, tell your testimony, tell your experience of where you were and how God blessed you to get from where you were to where you are now in him. Right. Well, you make a good point, Will. And we often talk about if men will take the step in the natural, God will come along in the supernatural.
And this is one of those key areas, right? Even as it relates to Bible memory, reading the Bible, understanding how it all correlates together. If you will just make the effort and pray ahead of time before you get into the Bible to say, Father, just help lock this into my heart and into my mind as I'm reading your word. You may not be the best memorization person. But you, if you'll let God lead you through it, just like you shared, you know, Will, you're one of the most talented individuals and gifted that I know in this area that, you know, you can pull scripture up.
It's like you're looking, I can see the encyclopedia and the Bible flipping through your eyes when you start to look up in scripture, so and so, and you'll give the reference and the quote. It can be done, folks. Amen. And so I think don't let that be a discouragement to you is what I'm trying to say. God, you step in the natural, God will do the rest in the supernatural.
Amen. And you know, Roy, when you talk about purpose, man, purpose, when I see purpose, I see purpose in three components, three components when it comes to purpose. Number one is desire. Number two is motivation.
And number three is determination, desire, motivation, and determination. And I think once we understand those components, then we will start to take ourselves in the right direction because you are the guardian of your own destiny. And so, you know, I'm just reminded here of how God blessed in scripture, you know, and I jotted down a few scriptures, Colossians one, nine and 10. For this reason, we also, since the day we heard of it, do not cease to pray for you and that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. So that's your purpose. Your purpose is to gain knowledge and let God take the wisdom and show you how to apply the knowledge.
So if I can back up one step, that's great, Will, and I'm going to build in front of what you just shared. A man of purpose is a Christ follower. He has to be a Christ follower in order for this to make sense. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And so once he get there and now you start laying out the plan and the plan again is desire, motivation, determination. If you have no desire to want to know more about God, then you'll never pick up the word. But see what you had just stated, if you are a man of God, then you want to know more about who God is, what God did in history, how he blessed the prophets, how he blessed certain individuals, how he blessed the apostles, and how he spoke through them to convey the message of God. So once we, as the man and head of our house, we are the ones who supposed to be leading.
Right. And the blessings is one component of it, right? The work piece is the other part of it's the man involved. And I think a man of purpose is the man involved. So that person has got to be not only seeking spiritual guidance, but he's also got to be a man of action and out there doing things in the world.
And being a participant rather for the kingdom, as opposed to just sitting back on the sidelines, like we always talk about. Amen. Because, you know, Jesus said, we are the light, we're salt and light. That's right. So if we're salt and light, you know, and light, when you shed shine light in a dark room, darkness is what flees. Right.
But then when you turn the light off, all of a sudden, here comes darkness. Right. So darkness cannot really exist in the presence of life. That's right.
It just can't. I heard a message the other day that was talking about that very thing. It was talking about some of the blessings that have come through the darkness. You know, when God created it all, it was all dark. He said, let there be light. So all of a sudden he, some of the greater blessings come through darkness. Right. And then when we're in the middle of the dark times, if we're looking and seeking God, that's when some of our greater blessings come because we see how strong and how capable he is when we're following him. Amen. And, and we know God is able because we see him working in the lives of other people. And we know if he did for John, James and Paul and Peter.
If he fixed all those other characters, you ought to be able to do something for me. Exactly. Exactly. And see, you may not be the one who establish and plan a church and do all of these things, these great things, as we consider, you know, in the eyes of man, but your purpose and letting God lead you to do whatever it is you want, you can do in the church, not necessarily what you want to do, right? Because what we want to do may not line up with what God has called us to do.
Well, that goes back to what we said earlier. If what we want to do, then it becomes about me or it is about me rather than it may not become, maybe it always is and always has been, but we need to make it about others because Christ made it about others. Amen.
It was never about himself. No matter here, here was the greatest of all God himself as man walking on this earth, but it was never about him other than sharing the love of God. Amen. And that's like, look at how he lived, how he traveled.
I mean, all those things. Amen. So when, when I have a desire, I mean that desire that I have that I have to want to bring my family together, if my family is torn apart, or if we're walking in different directions, then that God will place that desire in your heart. But you, as the man in the head of that household, you have to be at a point to be able to listen to the voice of God when he calls you. So you get out there, go to your house of worship, start studying the Bible and just start reading. And start praying too. That's right.
That's the other thing too, right? Men don't pray very regularly. And you know, you make a good point. If you're the head of your household, you know, a man of purpose is the man involved. And that's the first place he or she's involved is at home with his wife and his children. And then, you know, and I shared with some guys last week, even if you're not married, you can still be the head of your household. Amen. Because you can set patterns and established disciplines as God is preparing you for that next step.
That's right. To be married or whatever it is. You can pray over your home. You can pray for your neighbors. You can pray for God's guidance in that day. You can pray for your future spouse.
You can pray for your future children. All of those things are things that will draw you closer to the father and give you more intimate knowledge of that personal relationship. And it will create what we're talking about now. It'll create the desire. The desire to have purpose.
That's right. Because, you know, you want to be an active father within your home and you also want to be an active participant in the teaching of your family within scripture. And so if you're doing these things and that desire is created in you, then all you have to do now is walk it out. You know, I love the word active will because that's one of the things I said.
You have to be an active player, you know, and an active participant. So in this relationship with God, you have to do your part. And that part is just what you've mentioned. You need to be reading the word. We need to be praying.
We need to be asking. But there's another piece of that. We need to be an active listener.
And that's part of that thing. An active listener is that when God mirrors something or says something to you through his word, then you should mirror it back to him. Father, this is what I'm receiving from your word.
Am I hearing it correctly? Amen. And, you know, I have taught our, the congregation there in which God had blessed me to be pastor over. Pray the word. If you can't pray anything else, pray the word. You know, pray the Psalms, pray proverbs, you know, but you have to get these things inside. And see that 10th verse of Colossians, it says that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
There it is again. And study to show thyself approved, right? That's right. You know, so if I'm, if I'm studying and if I am reading, I may not fully understand what I'm saying, but as you commit your heart and mind, and we're always talking about, you know, Romans 12, two, renewing your mind every day, get up.
And this is how you do it. You devote, have your devotion, pray to God, ask God to open up your heart, your mind with a further understanding of his word. And if things you don't understand, he will send people. Yes.
He will, he will put people in your path to give you that particular understanding. That's why I'm a, I'm a big proponent, Roy, and you probably know this already of the small group. Of the small group. I love the small group. I will defend the small group to the grave because we both are big proponents.
I am huge. And I think, man, if you are born again and you have been in the Lord in any space of time, you should be in a small group because that's where key learnings, I mean, are really, really established. They are will. And the other piece of that, like we've talked about in the past is it's a, it's an accountability time too. So if you're struggling with something, you've got a group of brothers.
That's going to ask that question. The difficult questions as you're going through that life journey together, they can say, well, are you in check in your private life? Are you in check in your anger?
Are you in check and loving on your spouse? All of those things are so important. So I totally concur about the small groups.
And that's a fact. We've got training coming up here, April, October 31st. That's right. With Steve Sonderman. If you'd like to know more about that, we'd love to have you join us on October 31st from 9 AM to 2 PM. Lunch will be served.
Cost of the seminar is only $10. It's going to be a great day about mobilizing men for one-on-one ministry, which includes small groups and the vitality and importance of that. So we'll be right back folks. We're taking a quick break.
Join your hosts Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Affordable chiropractic in High Point. As you might tell from their name, affordable chiropractic, even for the cash patient. Dr. Jeff Fricke has been caring for patients in High Point for 34 years.
Physical therapy such as ultrasound and spinal decompression for disc conditions such as herniation, comprehensive care for auto accident injury patients with no out-of-pocket expense. Remember affordable chiropractic on West Lexington Avenue in High Point. Call 336-885-1987. Welcome back to ManTalk Radio. We thank you so much for joining us. As we went to break, we were talking about the importance of small groups and we invited you to this training that's coming up on October 31st.
So let me just finish that real quick. It's going to be held at First Christian Church in Kernersville, North Carolina, our host site. And again, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., if you need some information, check our website www.tawcmm.com.
That's www.tawcmm.com. You can register online and we look forward to seeing you on that Saturday morning. Thank you again for coming back with us. Will, you know, we were talking about a man of purpose and we talked about needs, desire and multiple other components that make a man of purpose. Amen.
One thing that comes to mind is the great, great commission, right? When you think about purpose, because we oftentimes, you know, people don't understand it. Go make disciples of all the nations. Well, basically, you're going to share the gospel and those that accept Christ, you need to take them to the next level so that we get them what off the sidelines. It's one thing to have your salvation. It's a whole nother to work to sanctification and work towards truly making disciples and just growing daily and growing others in their walk with Christ. I think that's such a key part of a man with purpose is indeed the great commission. You've got to have that as one of your principles.
Amen. And, you know, if you don't, then we are not fulfilling what God had said in reference to going out and basically expanding the church because we've got to take the gospel to everywhere where it's not being ministered. That's right. And we think it's, you know, today that it's not a place on earth where it might not be ministered. But if you look hard enough, there's some people who are just not getting the gospel message. Right. Exactly right. And for whatever reason, that might be because the country that they're living in, you know, could be a more dominant religion, say Muslim.
And if, you know, they commit to the Christian way of life, you know, that they fear for their lives in some of these countries. No doubt. You know, so the second component then, Roy, to purpose is motivation. And when I think when you, when I talk about motivation myself personally, I think of three subtopics under motivation. And those are that you have to have enthusiasm.
You got to be enthusiastic about your desire. So see, desire precedes motivation. And so enthusiastic, I think goes with attitude, right? Yeah, exactly.
So it's a show. You choose to be enthusiastic. You choose to have a good attitude. You may not always feel like being enthusiastic. You may not always feel like having a good attitude, but you have to choose that.
And there are people, if you get around born again believers and men who are walking upright in Christ, this is where the small group comes in because, see, they can feed into your spirit the things that perhaps they went through that you're currently going through. That's right. Which leads into our other statement, which we've made before.
A man with an opinion has no argument with the man with experience. Amen. Right. And that's exactly what you're saying.
The man with experience sitting across the table who can help guide that person who's going through that same journey now in his life. Amen. And so when, when you talk about being enthusiastic, you know, again, that's where everything we do is a choice. It's a choice. We we, we choose what we're going to put on, where are we going to go? So we're making choices all day.
Right. You know, and so, so we have to make a choice about our spiritual health. You know, what is it that I'm going to do today to feed my spiritual man, to enhance my spiritual growth, to take me to the next level. So that second component then to, to motivation is what we talked about, accountability. So you have to have in there some type of accountableness, if you will, to yourself, you know, so you, you gotta be accountable. So if, if I, if I fail, if I set a specific standard that I'm going to live by, and yet I fail in that standard, and then I continue to move on or I overlook it, Roy, then, then I'm not allowing myself to be held accountable because what I'm doing is just showing it to the side. Well, and you're not seeking, uh, the pure sense of forgiveness either, because if you overlook and keep moving forward, then you've not reconciled that sin, right?
You're not reconciled that failure. And one piece of that too, Will, is it's important for men to be transparent in a small group setting. And this, and let me just stress this point too, in the small group setting, there has to be a high, high, high sense of confidentiality. The only time I've, and I've given my men, the guys that I've been a part of, I said, look, the only time you'll ever have a problem with confidentiality is that if you're breaking the law and it's something that needs to be dealt with, or if there's infidelity in a marriage, if you don't take it forward, then we're going to have to take it forward because you can't continue to live in sin. That's just, and that's part of that accountability piece. And if a man's walking with God and he's had a problem or he's made a mistake, his brother's going to wrap him up, pray for him, but then he needs to take that forward to his wife to reconcile.
And because, because of James 4 17, he who know to do the will of God, but doesn't, to him it is sin. Amen. Amen.
So yeah, so that's great Will, good Bill. So that, you know, you, you have to have some type of accountability and, you know, it's just like in the natural, you have a project that you need to do or start in the house. And, and I remember years ago when I was a much younger man, no comment, no comment, you know, I would get out, I would get out there and I ran marathons that that's what I did. I mean, I was, I was a runner and I ran and ran and ran and ran. But when I first started, the most difficult thing was getting started.
Yeah. You know, you got to get out the door and seeing that that's the thing it, you have to really motivate yourself and those who run or exercise, you know, when you don't, you have a feeling of guilt. And so you should have that same feeling when you fail to not give God the time that he deserves in your life. That, that prayer time, the devotion time, the time to seek his face. And if you're not doing that and you know that you should be doing it, again, James 4 17, we have to go back to that.
Now that last, that last component. So I have, I got to get enthusiastic. I have to build some type of enthusiasm. Number two, number two, this is all talking about motivation. Now, number two, I have to have some type of accountability in my motivation steps. And then number three, I have to have some type of goal that I'm, I'm reaching or because it has to end. So you have to end whatever it is, you're going to start. So you can start something else. That's right.
You know, if you, if it was, how does the saying go? If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. Exactly.
Right. Therefore in the absence of, then you're basically saying, I'm just, I'm giving up, you know, and it's great way you put that. Well, we, uh, I was talking to my son earlier this evening or today and on this very topic, and we were chatting about, you know, some of the things because he's having, he's in college and he's having to go through this whole online studying, but it's easy to get out of discipline of working out regularly of his Bible study time of his prayer time. So even his roommate are going to hold each other accountable in this journey. And that's a great point that you were making about motivation, accountability, and then goals and accountability in that sense requires you to convey what your goals are to someone else so that they can help hold you in check to say, pick up the phone and call you week and say, well, how was your quiet time this week? How was your study time?
How was your private life? If that's an area that you've gotten in your goals to make sure you're staying away from things, you shouldn't be a part of those types of things are part of that accountability. So that the great builds, I mean, great builds folks. This is, this is mighty rich stuff.
As my, as my boss would say mighty rich. Amen. But, you know, because hardly any of us in anything we do are self-motivators, you know, we, that we have to have something, someone kind of helping us along. There are those 1% or less, I think in the population that they've got such drive that they hit the deck running, but the other 99% of us need some help.
Amen. And I'm in that 99%, but you know, Joe, Joe chapter 20 in verse two and three says, therefore my anxious thoughts make me answer because of the turmoil within me. I have heard the rebuke that reproaches me and the spirit of my understanding causes me to answer. See, he was being bombarded by three of his so-called friends, you know, and so they were saying, Joe, it's because you're a sinner.
It's because man was born in created in sin and et cetera. And they went on and on and on. And they really thought that they knew Joe, but, but here, Joe stood fast. He stood fast and he made himself accountable. Yes, he did. And, and so as God began to bless him and as he began to hold on now, now that we don't know the condition of how Job look, but anytime when you have to take a piece of pottery and literally scrape the boils off of your skin, doesn't take much imagination to figure that out. Exactly.
When you had to take pottery and you know, this pottery, I mean, just to get relief, scrape, scrape these things off. And they just looked at him when his three friends came, they just sat there. And I don't know if it was two or three days, they just sat there and looked at him. And it was like, Joe, what happened? It's like, they couldn't believe what they were seeing. It had gone from one extreme to the other.
Exactly. But see, and that's how sometimes, Roy, in our lives, we get to the point of there's so much pain going into our life. So much pain, you know, pain in reference to spiritual pain, physical pain, emotional pain, psychological pain, all these things just sort of like start enclosing on us. And as a born again believer, I honestly believe that we cannot get out of this ourselves. We cannot, unless we as men allow God, let him. He's not going to force himself on you, man.
You have to let him do the things in your life that you cannot do for yourself. Amen, Will. Thank you so much for closing that. And as we are closing, folks, remember what we always share with you.
If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, ask him into your heart, repent from your sins, turn and start following God from this day forward. Get a body of fellowship to be a part of, and contact us if you need help finding the location. God bless you all. We'll see you next week. Thank you so much for being a part of our show.
We love you. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with the desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk. This is the Truth Network.
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