a.
GRACE – Definition:
Grace
is God's unmerited favor. It is kindness from God we don't deserve. There is
nothing we have done, nor can ever do to earn this favor. It is a gift from
God. It is what separated Christianity
from all other religions.
God's
Riches
At
Christ's
Expense
Riches
At
Christ's
Expense
b.
Be Like Christ – Imitate Jesus. (The
Imitation of Chirst – Thomas A Kempis)
c.
Crucifix – Jesus died for our
sins. He is our Lord and Savior. He was the “2nd Adam.” With his death he washed away our sins and is
our one and only great intercessor to God the Father. Jesus’ death was the last sacrifice needed
for forgiveness of sins, and is everlasting.
Adam was created perfect and it is through him that sin entered the
world. It took the sacrifice of another sinless
man, Jesus, to conquer sin. This
forgiveness is God’s Grace. Without him
we are hopeless, without him there is no way to deal with sin. The sign of the cross is a symbol of this,
and it serves as a reminder that through faith in Jesus, and because of the
Grace of God, that this world has no real power over us. They tortured him and put him to death, but
death has no power over him. And if we
have faith in Him, it has no power over us either. We use the cross as a reminder of God’s grace
and sacrifice for us, but also we take this symbol of torture and suffering and
throw it back into the face of evil, as if to say, even when you do your worst,
God’s Kingdom will prevail.
d.
Drop of Blood – Jesus suffered for our
sins (garden of Gethsemane and the cross).
The more you sin the more Jesus had to suffer. Each sin causes Jesus more suffering since he
died for all sins.
e.
Arrow – A reliance on God, and a self-reliance
under God (Declaration of Independence – a dual declaration). Represents self-sufficiency and a man’s
responsibility to provide for his family and others in need. Don’t be lazy and rely on handouts from
others. A man must learn to take care of
himself and those he is responsible for.
Learn the skills needed to be self-sufficient. Rely on God, but also prepare for hard times.
Do what you can do and let God do the
rest.
f.
God’s Will (GW) - Not my will, but God’s will.
Your will be done
g. Love (1 and 2) –
The two greatest commandments. Everything you do, do with love. (see
Love below)
i.
Love your God with all your heart, with
all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind (Luke 10: 27)
ii.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself
h.
Faith
(F) (two parts)
i.
Faith is trust or confidence placed in
some person or thing (Merriam – Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). Faith is the
realization of what is hoped for and evidence (conviction) of things not seen
(Hebrews 11: 1). A confident conviction
that God will do what He promised.
Accepting, or regarding as true, the doctrines of Christianity. Faith that Jesus Christ is our Lord and
Savior. That he is the son of God. That he died for our sins so that we may be
right with God. A sane man accepts or
rejects any statement, not because he wants to or does not want to, but because
the evidence seems to him good or bad.
If you were mistaken about the evidence this may not necessarily make
you good or bad, but only that you were not very clever.
ii.
When your mood rises up against you,
when it is convenient for Christianity to not be true this is where you need
the 2nd type of faith. Faith
in this 2nd level means holding on to things your reason has once
accepted, in spite of your changing moods.
You need to teach your moods where to get off. You need to remember why you believed in the
first place. You need to believe it and rely on it. Just like you can believe the rope will hold
your wait, but you really don’t have faith in it or rely on it until you hang
from it.
iii.
The Law of Human Nature (LHN):
This is the thing inside us that tells us what’s right from wrong. Unlike other Laws of Nature, such as the law
of gravity, it is a law we can choose not to follow. Actually none of us can follow it
perfectly. Human beings all over the
earth have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and
cannot really get rid of it. People do
not in fact behave in that way. They
know the Law of Nature, but they break it.
These two facts are the
foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe that we live
in.
i.
Pray Daily (PD) – 5 times a day
i.
Morning Prayer – Remind yourself of
your purpose every morning. Pray on your knees – Help me Father and Lord Jesus,
so that I may persevere in my good purpose and in Your holy service to my
life’s end. Help me to do Your will, and not my own. Help me not to be prideful or selfish, but
humble and loving. Help me to be a good
example to my family and others and to help draw others closer to you. Thank you for all the blessings that you have
given me, and for another day of life.
Help me reject passivity, accept responsibility, lead courageously, and
expect a greater reward. I say and ask
all these things in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
ii.
Pray each time before you eat. Thank God for the food and other blessings in
your life. (at least three times a day)
iii.
Evening Prayer – Pray on your knees
before you go to sleep – Give glory to God and thank God, recount your sins for
the day ask forgiveness of sins, pray for others, pray for yourself, say Our
Father.
j.
Meditate on God’s Word (MGW) - The Bible
i.
Read and study the bible every
day. Do daily devotional after dinner
each day. Eat dinner as a family. Read missal on Saturday night after dinner to
prepare for Sunday Mass.
ii.
Truth with Love.
k.
Seven Virtues (7V) (Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis)
i.
4 Cardinal (Pivotal) Virtues – 4 Common
Virtues recognized by all civilized people
1.
Prudence – God wants a child’s heart,
but a grown up’s head. Common sense,
taking time to think out what you are doing and what is likely to come of it.
2.
Temperance – going the right length and
no further. Not necessarily abstaining and does not refer to just drinking, but
to all pleasures. One of the marks of a
bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else
to give it up too.
3.
Justice – Everything that we now call
fairness. It includes honesty, give and
take, truthfulness, and keeping promises.
4.
Fortitude – Includes both types of
courage, the kind that faces danger, and the kind that “sticks it out” under
pain or duress. Guts may be the closest
word in modern English. You cannot
practice any other virtues without bring this one into play.
Diligence.
ii.
3 Theological (Christian) Virtues
1.
Faith – See Faith section
above
2.
Hope – A continual looking forward to
the eternal world, not as a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of
the things a Christian is meant to do.
It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the
Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most
of the next. Aim at Heaven an you will
get earth thrown in, aim at earth, and you will get neither. Think of yourself as a citizen of Heaven
temporarily living on earth, not as a citizen of earth trying to get into
heaven.
3.
Charity (Love) – More than just giving
to the poor. Charity means love. In the Christian sense, love does not mean
emotion. It is the state not of the
feelings but of the will, that state of will which we have naturally about
ourselves, and must learn to have about other people. Our love for ourselves does not mean we like
ourselves. We should encourage our
affections to “like” people as much as we can because it makes it easier to be
charitable. Just as we try to encourage
are liking of vegetables because they are good for us, not that liking is a
virtue, but that liking is a help to charity.
Some people are cold and hard by temperament. That may be a misfortune
to them, but is no more a sin than having a bad digestion system. We must be charitable to these people, and
they must learn to be charitable to others.
Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor, act as if
you did. You cannot control your
feelings all the time. Christian love,
either towards God, or towards man, is an affair of the will. Love is an action. Truth with Love. Be rooted and a grounded in
love. All actions and thoughts should
grounded in love. It should be starting
point for everything (Ephesians 3:17-19).
They will know you are My disciples because of your Love (not because of
your judging)(John 13:35).
l.
4 Manhood Principles (4M) (Raising a Modern Day Knight –
Robert Lewis)
i.
Reject Passivity
ii.
Accept Responsibility
iii.
Leads Courageously
iv.
Expect a Greater reward
m.
8 Beatitudes (8B) (Matthew 5: 3-10)
i.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Verse 3) (poor is spirit means someone who is humble and resists
pride)
iv.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for
they shall have their fill. (Verse 6)
viii.
Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Verse 10)
n.
Words of Wisdom (WW) – List of quotes and sayings that you should remember and add
to throughout life.
o.
Shield – Put on the full armour
p.
God is the light of the world (Lantern)
i.
God’s word lights your path and reveals your
sins, shows you where you have made wrong turns and how to change course and
directs you to the right path. You were
blind but now you see. God’s word lights
up the world in a whole new light and shows you what is real. A new perspective and a new reality. You realize that the world as you once knew
it, is fake and upside down, and the things that were hard to understand and
seemed more like fantasy are actually reality, and it is the world that is
make-believe. What is hard is easy, and what is easy is hard. Without the light you are like a wondering
fool in the wilderness. Be a light on a
hill. No one lights a lamp and then
covers it up. Let the light shine so that others may see it. The eyes are the lamp of the soul.
q.
P/P:
Principles over Passions, People over Possessions, and Principles over
Personalities.
r.
Spiritual Fitness (Dumbbell) – No matter how big and strong you are, if you stop
working out or exercising you will lose your strength and become weak. The same is true with spiritual
strength. It is something you must work
at everyday, if not you will start to go backwards and become a “spiritual
wimp.” People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.
s.
Don’t Let Death Find You Unprepared –
focus on the eternal and not the temporal.
Think about death every day, think about how you may die today each day
you wake, and be thankful for each day as you live it. Most people try to avoid thinking about
death, I believe this is a mistake.
Remember your mortality and prepare for the afterlife, prepare to be a
citizen of heaven. Remember that you
will die, that you were created, and each day is a gift from your creator. Your time is not your own, you didn’t earn
your life, and you are not entitled to anymore of it. If you die today, you would not be robbed of
the rest of your life, but are fortunate to have received the amount of time
you were given.
t.
Don’t let death find you unprepared
u.
Can’t Earn it
v.
Don’t Deserve it
w.
He Saved You
x.
Believe in Him
y.
Act Like Him
z.
Death to the Natural Self
2.
Back of Family Crest Pendant
a.
Star – Be a north star for your
children. Be a rock and a good example,
a godly man for them to follow and turn too.
Be someone they can count on.
b.
Manage your thoughts and defend against
temptation (TFDC) (Charles Stanley)
i.
To build a defense against temptation,
we must understand how it works. Every sin originates as a thought,
often the result of a flaming arrow the Evil One shoots our way (Eph.
6:16). This is the first step in a
sequence that temptation follows, according to the teachers of the ancient
church (Nikodimos and Makarios 1979:364-66). This is known as
"provocation," the initial idea. It is wise to reject the thought at
this point because the temptation is at its weakest and one is not yet guilty
of sin. If this salesman is at the door, it is best to ignore the knocking. If
a believer holds on to the thought, it becomes a fantasy—the chance to
imagine what it would be like to pursue that notion without actually doing so.
The problem with fantasies is that they can easily become entangled with a
person’s emotions. This creates a desire, which brings the believer to
the point where a choice must be made: he or she must either consent to
the sin or refuse. This process is quite dangerous, as the progression from
thought to choice can be almost instantaneous.
ii.
Wise believers determine ahead of time
to resist temptation—before it enters their consciousness. There are two
cornerstones to a good defense: the commitment to obey God, and the recognition
that He is in control and has limited what Satan can do (1 Cor. 10:13).
iii.
We can further fortify our defense when temptation actually
comes. Satan has a way of spotlighting the pleasure of sin until that’s all we
see. But with conscious effort, we can retrain our focus to take in the bigger
picture: Is this choice a violation of God’s Word? What are the
consequences? Am I prepared to pay that price?
iv.
No defense against temptation is complete without Scripture
and prayer. Every moment spent meditating on the Word and communicating with
God builds our faith. As the bulwark around our mind and heart strengthens, we
are ever more prepared to douse Satan’s flaming arrows. For
more biblical teaching and resources from Dr. Charles Stanley, please visit www.intouch.org.
c.
Love over Selfishness (L/S)
Love
– see above.
Selfishness
- devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own
interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.
d.
Humility over Pride (H/P) – A Christian does not assume the
posture of superiority or arrogance; he simply speaks as a sinner saved by
Grace. Evangelism is just one beggar
showing another beggar where to find food (D.T Niles). We are all saved by Grace and we are no
better than any other believer or unbeliever.
e.
Creature/Vessel (CV) – You are a creature, created by God. Your body is just a vessel for your soul, and
your tongue is the rudder (James 3). If you cannot control your tongue then you
cannot control the rest of yourself.
Look forward to receiving your future heavenly body/mansion.
f.
Reality/Freedom (RF) – Don’t let the world mold you, break the mold (square to
oval) (Rom 12). Once you realize your
desperate situation, that you are sinner, and no matter how hard you try you
will still fall short, that no man can keep the law perfectly except for the
one perfect man, Jesus Christ. When you
realize the great news that Jesus died for your sins so that you could be right
with God the Father, and have a relationship with Him through His Son. That you are a citizen of heaven, not a
citizen of earth, that you are not an earthly being with a soul, but a soul who
temporarily has an earthly body. That
any pain that you may go through in your life is temporary, and since God is
with you and you are on His side, there is nothing that you should fear. Once you have no fear, you will be free, and
you will be able to see your life and this world from a new lens. You will have a new reality, and see things
as they really are, not how they may seem.
g.
Christian/Believer/Follower (CBF)(Charles Stanley) – Which one are
you? Many people call themselves Christians,
but do not believe. Some believe but do
not follow. Out of all who call themselves Christians, there are less who are
could be considered believers, and even less who are real followers and doing
God’s will.
h.
Yoke –
i.
Your life and your time are not your
own
j.
Jesus washes the disciples feet
k.
The servant is not greater than his
master
l.
All Are Sinners
m.
Do Not Judge
n.
Hate the Sin
o.
Forgive
p.
Raw Material
q.
Wish Good For Others
r.
Try Continually
