December 1, 2006 Broadcast of Focus on the Family
The Vital Role of Fathering (Part 2 of 2) Josh McDowell
Josh McDowell talks about the important role that fathers play in the lives of their kids. (Part 2 of 2)
A former agnostic, Josh McDowell is now a well-known Christian *apologist (he defends the authority/truth of the Bible and explains it), speaker and author who has influenced the lives of millions of people around the world. He has written or co-written more than 75 books including the best-selling Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter. Josh and his wife, Dottie, reside near Dallas, Texas, and have four children. (from www.family.org)
* by Josh McDowell
"Apologetics," as defined in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, is "a branch of theology devoted to the defense of the divine origin and authority of Christianity."
If you want to know more about apologetics, this (http://www.josh.org/apologetics/apologetics.asp) is the place to be. You'll find proof that the Christian faith is based on fact, not fiction.
My interest in apologetics began back in college when I was challenged by several students to examine the claims of Jesus Christ. After much study, I could only come to one conclusion Jesus Christ is the Son of God, He was crucified, He died, and He was resurrected on the third day.
Soon after this discovery, I accepted Jesus as my Savior and Lord. As one who had set out to prove Christianity false, I now found myself in the perfect position to proclaim the Truth I had found. Over the past 39 years God has given me many opportunities to speak at college campuses and churches. He has also led me to write many books on apologetics.
One of these books is More Than a Carpenter. In it I share the basic truths of the Christian faith, as well as my own story of how I came to Christ. You can order it at http://www.beyondbelief.com/a_mtc.spl?sourceid=3104
My husband Joe and I LOVE Josh McDowell. In fact, he is one of the Josh's that we named our (now 5-year-old!) son Joshua after. Mr. McDowell can explain the Bible very well. He can explain the differences between Christianity and cults. He impacts people greatly for Christ. He has a very unique and passionate voice. He is passionate about the gospel! And he may be MOST passionate about reaching young people with the message of God's unfailing love.
Josh is sucessful in reaching young people with God's love. He tells of gothic students at high schools coming up to him and asking him for hugs. One young man in particular told him that his father never hugged him or told him he loved them. Josh challenges us to think about that when we see these Men (and women) In Black.
I didn't get to listen as closely to Part 1 of Josh's message on Focus on the Family yesterday, but here are some notes I took on the message he shared today. I have copied and pasted some of the Bible verses Josh refers to using www.BibleGateway.com .
I hope the notes are a blessing to you. You can go to www.family.org and www.josh.org for more information.
Rejoicing in grace and in Abba Father's unfailing love,
Jenn
NOTES ON JOSH'S MESSAGE ON THE VITAL ROLE OF FATHERING
(additional/explanatory notes by me in parentheses)
Intimacy is the ability to be real with another person. –Josh McDowell
The #1 question he gets from young men all over the world is “Will you give me a hug?” A goth (short for gothic—a style featuring black clothes, hair, makeup, body piercings, etc) guy at a high school asked him that at one of the high schools he spoke at did that. He said that his father had never hugged him or told him he loved him.
Kids need UNCONDITIONAL love from their fathers.
Pres. Bush, Sr. said his best accomplishment was that his kids still come home.
3 Questions that Josh asks his children:
1) Do you know that I love you?
2) Do you know that I love your mother?
3) When you get married and have kids do you want what I have with your mother and with you?
---If your kids can answer yes to all of these you are able to mold and shape them. If they answer no to any of them, you will have less of a positive impact on them.
There is no Bible verse that guarantees good parenting because every child has a free will. Proverbs 22:6 is probably one of the most misquoted Bible verses. Proverbs 22:6 (New International Version) “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
But if your kids KNOW you have unfailing love for them, the chances of them getting into trouble will be less.
You’re not truly emotionally free to fail until you know you are unconditionally loved.
We owe it to our kids to show them that they are so unfailingly loved that they are still free to fail.
In all the interviews Josh has heard w/ Hugh Heffner (creator of Playboy magazine, etc), Josh has never heard him mention his father. But Hugh said recently that he knew his mother loved him but she never showed it, so he had to learn about love from the movies. Josh thinks that if Hugh had been shown unfailing love (by his parents—especially his father) there would have never been Playboy magazine.
1 Cor 13 on love.
1 Corinthians 13 (The Message by Eugene H. Peterson)
The Way of Love
1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.
8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
King David wrote of God’s unfailing love.
Psalm 13:4-6 (New International Version)
4 my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.
Pres. Bush wanted Josh to tell him –for a Father’s Day speech—what he thought was the greatest problem facing America. Josh said, “The Daddy”. He told the President’s secretary that and she said she couldn’t go to the Pres. With that. He got her e-mail and sent her 70 pages of research. Pres. Bush used some of Josh’s material in his speech and got a huge/loud standing ovation from his audience.
Moms are taken for granted b/c they are expected to be there, etc for their children.
Dads aren’t taken for granted. Kids don’t know what to expect from their Dads. Will he be there for me or always be on the phone? Will he cry with me? Will he pray for/with me?
When Josh’s kids would come home from school they’d tell him that their friends wished Josh was their Daddy.
Men are a powerful force when it comes to the impact they have on their children.
Josh says his greatest contribution is loving his wife and children.
Josh says Focus on the Family has a big task. But God doesn’t call us to anything that he doesn’t resource us for!
Jim Dobson says God once revealed to him that if this nation is going to make it/if the church is going to make it, men are going to have to love their wives, children/families. (James C. Dobson, Ph.D., is founder and chairman of Focus on the Family.)
Problems are big if you have a small god. But problems are small if you have/serve a BIG God! And we serve a BIG GOD!
Josh is ready to attack hell with a squirt gun if men/leaders will step up to the task. And Jim Dobson says the gates of hell shall not prevail! (The Bible says that, too, but I can’t find the verse!)
Derek Prince once said the biggest problem in this nation is “renegade males not doing their jobs.” (Derek Prince (1915-2003), poured himself out to reach the unreached, and teach the untaught – to see the hope of the gospel spread all around the world. –from www.derekprince.com)
Josh grew up with an abusive father who beat his mother, etc. But God brought 3 godly couples into Josh’s life when he was in seminary and they lived out before him how to love a woman and his children.
Silence in an audience usually indicates that a speaker has hit a raw nerve. Many men have been convicted by Josh’s messages.
Jim Dobson’s father warned him to not let success cause him to lose their children.
How can men start over?
Josh says they need to have a new attitude. When his son was 2 and wanted to play football and talk to him he was working on a deadline and told him he’d talk to him later. His wife gently rebuked him for that. Then Josh dropped to his knees and told God that he would never again put his ministry before his family. God showed him that his family IS his FIRST ministry.
It is NEVER too late for you to start over, men, dads, husbands! Not even if you are in your 40s and your kids are in jail. It is never too late to start over.
The Vital Role of Fathering (Part 2 of 2) Josh McDowell
Josh McDowell talks about the important role that fathers play in the lives of their kids. (Part 2 of 2)
A former agnostic, Josh McDowell is now a well-known Christian *apologist (he defends the authority/truth of the Bible and explains it), speaker and author who has influenced the lives of millions of people around the world. He has written or co-written more than 75 books including the best-selling Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter. Josh and his wife, Dottie, reside near Dallas, Texas, and have four children. (from www.family.org)
* by Josh McDowell
"Apologetics," as defined in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, is "a branch of theology devoted to the defense of the divine origin and authority of Christianity."
If you want to know more about apologetics, this (http://www.josh.org/apologetics/apologetics.asp) is the place to be. You'll find proof that the Christian faith is based on fact, not fiction.
My interest in apologetics began back in college when I was challenged by several students to examine the claims of Jesus Christ. After much study, I could only come to one conclusion Jesus Christ is the Son of God, He was crucified, He died, and He was resurrected on the third day.
Soon after this discovery, I accepted Jesus as my Savior and Lord. As one who had set out to prove Christianity false, I now found myself in the perfect position to proclaim the Truth I had found. Over the past 39 years God has given me many opportunities to speak at college campuses and churches. He has also led me to write many books on apologetics.
One of these books is More Than a Carpenter. In it I share the basic truths of the Christian faith, as well as my own story of how I came to Christ. You can order it at http://www.beyondbelief.com/a_mtc.spl?sourceid=3104
My husband Joe and I LOVE Josh McDowell. In fact, he is one of the Josh's that we named our (now 5-year-old!) son Joshua after. Mr. McDowell can explain the Bible very well. He can explain the differences between Christianity and cults. He impacts people greatly for Christ. He has a very unique and passionate voice. He is passionate about the gospel! And he may be MOST passionate about reaching young people with the message of God's unfailing love.
Josh is sucessful in reaching young people with God's love. He tells of gothic students at high schools coming up to him and asking him for hugs. One young man in particular told him that his father never hugged him or told him he loved them. Josh challenges us to think about that when we see these Men (and women) In Black.
I didn't get to listen as closely to Part 1 of Josh's message on Focus on the Family yesterday, but here are some notes I took on the message he shared today. I have copied and pasted some of the Bible verses Josh refers to using www.BibleGateway.com .
I hope the notes are a blessing to you. You can go to www.family.org and www.josh.org for more information.
Rejoicing in grace and in Abba Father's unfailing love,
Jenn
NOTES ON JOSH'S MESSAGE ON THE VITAL ROLE OF FATHERING
(additional/explanatory notes by me in parentheses)
Intimacy is the ability to be real with another person. –Josh McDowell
The #1 question he gets from young men all over the world is “Will you give me a hug?” A goth (short for gothic—a style featuring black clothes, hair, makeup, body piercings, etc) guy at a high school asked him that at one of the high schools he spoke at did that. He said that his father had never hugged him or told him he loved him.
Kids need UNCONDITIONAL love from their fathers.
Pres. Bush, Sr. said his best accomplishment was that his kids still come home.
3 Questions that Josh asks his children:
1) Do you know that I love you?
2) Do you know that I love your mother?
3) When you get married and have kids do you want what I have with your mother and with you?
---If your kids can answer yes to all of these you are able to mold and shape them. If they answer no to any of them, you will have less of a positive impact on them.
There is no Bible verse that guarantees good parenting because every child has a free will. Proverbs 22:6 is probably one of the most misquoted Bible verses. Proverbs 22:6 (New International Version) “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.”
But if your kids KNOW you have unfailing love for them, the chances of them getting into trouble will be less.
You’re not truly emotionally free to fail until you know you are unconditionally loved.
We owe it to our kids to show them that they are so unfailingly loved that they are still free to fail.
In all the interviews Josh has heard w/ Hugh Heffner (creator of Playboy magazine, etc), Josh has never heard him mention his father. But Hugh said recently that he knew his mother loved him but she never showed it, so he had to learn about love from the movies. Josh thinks that if Hugh had been shown unfailing love (by his parents—especially his father) there would have never been Playboy magazine.
1 Cor 13 on love.
1 Corinthians 13 (The Message by Eugene H. Peterson)
The Way of Love
1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.
8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
King David wrote of God’s unfailing love.
Psalm 13:4-6 (New International Version)
4 my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.
Pres. Bush wanted Josh to tell him –for a Father’s Day speech—what he thought was the greatest problem facing America. Josh said, “The Daddy”. He told the President’s secretary that and she said she couldn’t go to the Pres. With that. He got her e-mail and sent her 70 pages of research. Pres. Bush used some of Josh’s material in his speech and got a huge/loud standing ovation from his audience.
Moms are taken for granted b/c they are expected to be there, etc for their children.
Dads aren’t taken for granted. Kids don’t know what to expect from their Dads. Will he be there for me or always be on the phone? Will he cry with me? Will he pray for/with me?
When Josh’s kids would come home from school they’d tell him that their friends wished Josh was their Daddy.
Men are a powerful force when it comes to the impact they have on their children.
Josh says his greatest contribution is loving his wife and children.
Josh says Focus on the Family has a big task. But God doesn’t call us to anything that he doesn’t resource us for!
Jim Dobson says God once revealed to him that if this nation is going to make it/if the church is going to make it, men are going to have to love their wives, children/families. (James C. Dobson, Ph.D., is founder and chairman of Focus on the Family.)
Problems are big if you have a small god. But problems are small if you have/serve a BIG God! And we serve a BIG GOD!
Josh is ready to attack hell with a squirt gun if men/leaders will step up to the task. And Jim Dobson says the gates of hell shall not prevail! (The Bible says that, too, but I can’t find the verse!)
Derek Prince once said the biggest problem in this nation is “renegade males not doing their jobs.” (Derek Prince (1915-2003), poured himself out to reach the unreached, and teach the untaught – to see the hope of the gospel spread all around the world. –from www.derekprince.com)
Josh grew up with an abusive father who beat his mother, etc. But God brought 3 godly couples into Josh’s life when he was in seminary and they lived out before him how to love a woman and his children.
Silence in an audience usually indicates that a speaker has hit a raw nerve. Many men have been convicted by Josh’s messages.
Jim Dobson’s father warned him to not let success cause him to lose their children.
How can men start over?
Josh says they need to have a new attitude. When his son was 2 and wanted to play football and talk to him he was working on a deadline and told him he’d talk to him later. His wife gently rebuked him for that. Then Josh dropped to his knees and told God that he would never again put his ministry before his family. God showed him that his family IS his FIRST ministry.
It is NEVER too late for you to start over, men, dads, husbands! Not even if you are in your 40s and your kids are in jail. It is never too late to start over.
posted by JennB @ 5:56 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home