The Man in the Mirror
by Patrick Morley
– Most men are caught up in the rat race. Media runs our lives telling us what we need and must have.
– Colossians 4:2 — the secular world has done a better job influencing us than we have influencing them.
– Are you willing for God to show you how you really are? It’s time for some self-examination.
– We live in a culture that is dominated by secular values, and they have done their best to influence us.
– Cultural Christianity is to pursue the god we want and still pursue the true God.
– We must answer the question who am I, our identity. It is crucial we know who we are in Christ.
– We must also answer the question of why we exist. Why did God put us here?
– Goals come and go but purpose remains the same. We must know God‘s purpose for our lives.
– Goals are what we do, purpose is why we do what we do.
– Many men are succeeding at work but failing in life. It appears everything is going well while our home is falling apart.
– Many men, in pursuit of happiness or success, leave a strand of broken relationships.
– We often find our significance and happiness in the job we have or the money we make, when we should be looking at the marriage we have and the family God has given us.
– We think our grouchiness and temper towards our family should be understood by them, saying they don’t know how bad we have it. But who we really are is not determined by those from the outside as much as the ones closest to us.
– No amount of success in the office can compensate for failure at home.
– If we do not have time for family, we can be 100% sure we are not doing God‘s will for our lives.
– If we are willing to die for children, why can’t we make time for them while they are alive?
– Most people do not regularly pray for their children.
– Nobody says, on their deathbed, that they wish they would had spent more time at their job.
– Most marriages break down because the spouses are critical towards each other. We are quick to remember the good that we do and the bad that our spouse does.
– Few men have friends that really know them. We must become vulnerable if we are going to get help.
– If you want to be a real friend, you are the one who is going to have to take the risk. The price of friendship is personal vulnerability.
– Money is not the path to contentment. Ask yourself why you want more money.
– God wants us to live by Biblical principles and priorities.
– Doing the right job is not enough, we must do the right job in the right way.
– Too many people want to do big things, when we don’t realize that it’s consistency in many little things that amount up to big things.
– Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is simply not thinking of yourself.
– Anger is like piercing arrows from the bow of an archer. Once they are released, they do their damage, hurt many and cannot be taken back. Anger has been the downfall of many men.
– Other people cannot cause us to be angry, they just reveal what was already inside.
– The man who holds a grudge will end up just like the person to whom he holds the grudge.
– Doctors estimate that over 60% of our health problems are caused by emotional stress.
– Men usually become outraged over selfishness and impatience rather than injustice.
– A man’s face tells much about the man. Abraham Lincoln said that a man over 40 years old is responsible for what his space looks like.
– Most men want to be independent but the Godly man must learn to be dependent on God.
– Avoiding suffering is impossible. We don’t go seeking to suffer, but we understand that it is not a strange thing to suffer.
– Until we come to the end of ourselves and have nothing else to which we look or depend, we cannot learn fully how to depend on God.
– If we will always tell the truth, we will not have to work at remembering.
– The number one reason many men get into trouble is because they do not have to answer to anyone in life. The missing link of Christianity is accountability. We work all our life to be our own boss and are not accountable to anyone.
– Accountability is like nuclear fusion, we’ve all heard about it and know it’s important but have an idea what it is… no one can really put their finger on it. Accountability is answering to key people on a regular basis about key areas of our lives.
– What are areas you struggle in, areas that you need help in? Those are the areas that you must learn to be accountable to others in.
– Accountability is not fellowship. Accountability is not only seeking biblical council. Accountability is opening your life so that others can ask you questions and know what honestly is going on in your life.
– Fellowship without accountability helps very little.
– There are many reasons that we as men do not ask for accountability: fear of confidentiality, success, vulnerability, pride, no structure and/or consistency.
– Batteries go dead, even rechargeable batteries have to be recharged; and a man cannot continue on forever without being spiritually recharged.
– Christians must return to the basics in their lives, every day doing the basic disciplines a man of God should do.
– One of the disciplines a Christian man should have is prayer. An easy and known acronym to know what to pray for is ACTS:
Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication.
