✝️ Your 12-Step Daily Spiritual Growth Plan

Good morning, brothers - Thank you for sharing your honest reflections about the challenges you face in becoming the man God has called you to be. One foundational theme keeps emerging in your feedback: the vital importance of spending daily time with the Lord through His word. Today, we'll explore this essential practice together and offer a practical plan you can begin implementing right away. Let’s go and merry Christmas!

This week’s manly topics (6-min read):

⛑️ MIND SET Spiritual fitness requires daily discipline just like physical fitness. But where do you start developing your daily spiritual fitness plan?
📰  NEWS This week we focus on getting you ready to enjoy the merriest of Christmases and provide some training and reading recommendations.
🎁 OFFER This week’s sponsor, mobile app BetterSleep, has a special offer that will help MTM subscribers enjoy peaceful, rejuvenating sleep.

MIND SET
When everything is burning, what do you save?

I'll never forget the morning of March 6, 2010. It was a beautiful Saturday, and I had just left my office to make a few customer deliveries. As I was getting out of the car at my last stop, I got a call from one of my colleagues at work. “Get back here, Will; The Forge is on fire!”

Our family company, Wendell August Forge in western Pennsylvania, was 87 years old at the time. Known simply as “The Forge,” it was more than just a business - it was our heritage, proudly included in the National Registry of Historic Places.

I finished my delivery and calmly headed back to the office. “It couldn't be that bad,” I reassured myself.  About five miles out, I saw a huge plume of black smoke rising high in the sky. It was bad … really bad.

When I reached our street, I couldn't get close to the building and had to park about a quarter mile away. Walking up, I saw scorching flames, countless firefighters surrounding the building with hoses, and huge fire trucks shooting water into it. All were trying to save this historic structure.

About 30 minutes later, our local fire chief pulled me aside. “It's bad, Will. The building is a total loss. We're going to move from trying to save the building, and instead, we’re going to try and save as many of the most important things inside so you guys can rebuild.”

What happened over the next hours was nothing short of heroic. As some firefighters battled the flames, others formed a ring around the building. They asked our employees, who had gathered on-site as news of the fire spread, to help them pinpoint where the most important items were.

Then, firefighter after firefighter ran into the flames to rescue what they could of our company's legacy. It was then that I heard my colleague Karen say something I'll never forget:

“You have to go in and get Will's Bible. It's the most important thing in there to him.” Tears streamed down my face as one brave firefighter went into this burning, falling-down structure retrieved my Bible, ran out with it, and handed it to me.

Karen was right. To this day, that Bible—the same one my parents gave me when I accepted Christ in 1991—remains my most valuable earthly possession. I still read it every day, well, just about every day.

In full transparency, there are days I don’t show up to my appointment with God. Those days are typically when my struggles surface. But most mornings around 5:30 AM, you’ll find me in my chair with my coffee, Bible, pen, and journal, excited to meet with God.

I pray that through the following words, the Holy Spirit will encourage you to schedule time every day to meet with God in His Word and then show up. Show up not to check it off your to-do list, but so the Lord can use it to make you more of the man He created you to be. Scripture sanctifies us, grows us, and makes us more like Jesus:

Daily Devotion Builds Spiritual Muscle

Joshua was a man like you and me. He struggled and was asked by God to do a seemingly impossible task: following Moses's death, he was to assume leadership and lead the Israelites into the promised land. God told him:

Studying and meditating on the Word of God is the key to success in what he calls you to do and eternal prosperity.

What about you? You might not be charged with leading your nation in battle and conquest. But you and I are fighting our own battles - loneliness, despair, porn addiction, troubled marriage, lack of direction, anger issues, tough financial challenges, exhaustion. And God has given you and me the entirety of the Word of God as a primary tool in conquering our struggles. Read the next verse in Joshua and hear it as if God is speaking to you … because He is.

Your 12-Step Daily Spiritual Growth Plan

If you're ready to start this journey, here’s an 11-step game plan for daily Bible time:

1. Ask God to make His Word as essential to you as food and water.

2. Set a consistent daily time, ideally early morning, just as Jesus did when He met with His Father.

3. Find a quiet, private space in your home.

4. Show up! Starting is the hardest part, whether going to the gym or reading your Bible.

5. Begin by asking God to help you focus, understand, and remember what He is teaching you.

6. Start small (one verse or one chapter) and build your Bible-reading muscle gradually.

7. Ask yourself: What does this passage mean? What is God showing me? How can I apply this today?

8. Keep a notebook nearby so you can journal verses that speak to you and what God is teaching you.

9. Start with John’s Gospel, then Acts, followed by the epistles from Romans to John’s third letter.

10. As you build consistency, identify and memorize key verses that speak to your current situation.

11. If you miss a day, don't beat yourself up. Just recommit to showing up tomorrow.

12. Ask God to change your heart so spending time with the Lord in the Word is as important to you daily as food and water. Continuously repeat this step. I know I have to.

The key isn’t following this exact plan - it’s simply to start. Today. Now.

My prayer for you and me echoes Jeremiah’s words, that the Word of God would become our delight:

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THIS JUST IN
📣 NEWS FROM AROUND THE WEB 📣 

🎄Christmas 🎄
“Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!” 2 Corinthians 9:15

• The holidays introduce a lot of stress on your relationships and especially your marriage. The combined stress of work schedules, travel, hosting family and friends and financial strain can drain the joy you and your spouse should enjoy. How about approaching next week differently … as a team confronting the stresses together? Relationship experts Bill and Pam Farrel offer a podcast episode about “Five Ways to Face the Holidays Together.”

• What do you get when you combine the greatest story ever told with the greatest tenor of our time? You get a majestic and heartwarming artistic masterpiece that will bless you and your family this Christmas season. Gather your loved ones and watch the condensed version on YouTube and go behind the scenes on the Trinity Broadcasting Network site.

• If you agree that Die Hard is not only a Christmas movie but one of the best AND you abhor “Christmas” movies without any reference to Christ, then Mel Gibson-starring Fatman might be just what you are looking for. The movie was the inspiration of two brothers, 14 years, a shoe-string budget and a move away from the garbage dump that is Hollywood. (Caution: Contains a few scenes with salty language; not a children’s movie.)

Training
“For physical training is of some value …” 1 Timothy 4:8

• The way we approach resistance training changes as we age because our recuperative abilities decline. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s well-publicized training approach illustrates the type of short-duration, high-intensity method that works well for guys 45-to-50-plus. In RFK’s case, he lifts just three times weekly for 35 minutes each session. Take-away: Get in, work hard, talk and rest little, get out and recuperate. Courtesy Great Green Wall

Nutrition
“… your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit …” 1 Corinthians 6:19

• (We shared this at Thanksgiving but figured it might help to repost as a reminder.) Want to avoid the post-feast food coma and uncomfortable bloating? Lace up your shoes, grab someone you love and go for a walk. Not only will you both enjoy the most beautiful season God made (Autumn) and make good memories, you will help your body digest more efficiently. Courtesy MedicalNewsToday

Reading
“Prove all things; Hold fast to that which is good.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21

• Perspective shapes how we understand things. In that way, Paul Billheimer’s 1975 classic Destined for the Throne gives us a perspective that stretches back to the beginning of time to its conclusion. From that vantage point and guided by the biblical revelation, Billheimer provides compelling answers to fundamental questions like, “Why am I here?”, “Why am I suffering?” and “Where am I going?” This 144-page book will lift your spirits and your sights to appreciate how each day and each challenge prepares you for greatness.