Our faith in God is not an escape from the trials of life. God keeps us and sustains us, and these trials help our faith to grow even stronger. Trials come in many different areas in our lives. Some are short, and some are long. Some are more intense than others. But one thing is the same in all of them – they can all carry mystery and cause us to wonder why they happened. God will use the hard times in our lives as a refining process to bring out the best in us. Gold is valuable when it is purified through heat. God is very much in control of the temperature. He wants to mature and develop us. He knows where we need Him to work on us by His Holy Spirit. He does it all for our good. As we grow and develop in Christ, He will teach us to be the overcomers we were made to be.

Apart from God, we can’t resist temptation. Jesus told the disciples to watch and pray, and that includes us, so we don’t enter into temptation. (Matthew 26:41) We need to pray, and pray often. We also need to pray with others when we can. The enemy makes something look true when it’s a lie, and he makes it look pleasant to the desires of our old nature. It seems good, but it is destructive. We need to recognise temptation for what it is – something that can lead to sin.

God gives us authority in the name of Jesus the moment we are born again. Authority is ours when we become a child of God. Every believer has God-given authority. It is by the grace of God. It is not something we earn. God’s power works through our God-given authority. Authority and power go together. Authority is the channel for the power to flow through. The power of the Holy Spirit works in us and through us, as believers. God is the all-powerful One. His power is the greatest power of all! The Holy Spirit lives in us as born again believers. We have the greatest power living in us! (1 John 4:4)

Sixty-three stand-alone short chapters of help in living the Christian life. There are chapters here for everyone – people who are walking towards God, people walking with God, and those walking on with God. The short chapters are arranged approximately in this order, but there is much value in the early chapters for those looking for a deeper faith. This is not a book where you have to start at Chapter 1 and work your way through to the end. The Contents page lists the title of every chapter, so just dive in and read one that inter-ests you. Of course, you can start at Chapter 1 and read the whole book if you prefer, and our prayer is that every reader will be greatly blessed by what they read. The majority of these sixty-three chapters have been released individually as booklets, and every chapter as individual eBooks that are available in all formats from major eBook distributors. The eBook editions are free from most distributors. This whole volume is also available as a paperback from major book distributors.

Babies are cute when they are young and going through different stages of growth. But when they get older, you don’t expect them to act like babies! It is normal to grow and mature. Something is wrong if this normal development doesn’t happen. We need to be growing as Christians into maturity, and moving on to other things (Hebrews 6:3). Growth is our responsibility, and it always involves change. If we don’t change, we won’t grow. We need to be teachable. If we are satisfied with where we are, we won’t want to move on – and we will stagnate. We always need to learn. The Holy Spirit is always ready to teach us, and open up new ground to us.

At about the same time in my life that I became a father, I learned the principle that masculinity bestows masculinity. However, since I did not learn this principle until I was almost 40 years old, I grew up struggling mightily in my own masculine identity and maturity. So I also knew from experience how critically important it was for me to fulfill my responsibility in passing along this principle to my two sons, Jonah and Jacob. Therefore, I created a list of seven “statements of truth” that encompassed what I wanted to teach my sons about becoming and living as a man, an authentic man, the kind of godly man that is described in the Bible. I began telling my sons these truths every night at an early age so they would become engrained in them, as part of their very essence, and my boys would never doubt them. I also spent years preparing for the time when I would elaborate on the full meaning of each truth with my sons, as part of a day of celebration of their entry into manhood. Those years of preparation became this book, which I published to help other fathers (or father-figures/mentors) train their sons (or any boy) how to become a real man. My hope is that this book will be a blessing and an encouragement to every boy who receives it as he enters into (and lives out) authentic manhood.

If we want good fruit for the Kingdom in our lives, then it must be our choice that we speak only blessing and life. When we make the right choice, God comes to help us by His Holy Spirit at work within us. Our words have power. Power for evil and power for good. Power for life and power for death. Our circumstances are not under our control. But the way we respond to them, and talk about them, is our choice. We can speak positively with faith into our circumstances, or negatively with doubt and unbelief.