Camp Chippewa, 1962. Nelson Doughty, age thirteen, social outcast and overachiever, is the Bugler, sounding the reveille proudly each morning. Yet this particular summer marks the beginning of an uncertain and tenuous friendship with a popular boy named Jonathan. Over the years, Nelson, irrevocably scarred from the Vietnam War, becomes Scoutmaster of Camp Chippewa, while Jonathan marries, divorces, and turns his father’s business into a highly profitable company. And when something unthinkable happens at a camp get-together with Nelson as Scoutmaster and Jonathan’s teenage grandson and daughter-in-law as campers, the aftermath demonstrates the depths—and the limits—of Nelson’s selflessness and bravery. The Hearts of Men is a sweeping, panoramic novel about the slippery definitions of good and evil, family and fidelity, the challenges and rewards of lifelong friendships, the bounds of morality—and redemption.
From the bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed, an explanation of recent sexual culture and the loosening of marriage bonds in recent history. "Finally someone is offering a new, utterly plausible explanation...of loosening marriage bonds. According to Barbara Ehrenreich...it is men who started walking off, in search of freedom from their stifling role of breadwinner/success-machine. The shock—and exhilaration—of this book comes from the recognition that here is a woman who has dared to look beyond the everyday assumptions about love and commitment to examine which bonds between men and women can endure and which may last forever.”--Vogue
In all your boyhood dreams of growing up, did you dream of being a "nice guy"? Eldredge believes that every man longs for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. That is how he bears the image of God; that is what God made him to be.
Tall, dark, and handsome, Prodigy Banks was once a playboy. Now he’s a man any mother would be proud to call her son, and when he meets Nina, the mother of the young boy he mentors, it seems that life is going to get even better. But when his past threatens his newfound respectability, Prodigy has to act fast to protect his new relationship. Bernard Charles is haunted by childhood memories of abandonment and poverty. His workaholic ways frustrate his wife, Diane, and leave her vulnerable to another man’s advances. After her betrayal, will Bernard move on or move out? Winston “Poppa Doc” Fuller has a fix for what’s ailing the younger generation. Married for more than forty years to his beloved Ethel, Winston brings healing to everyone he touches. Yet despite his best efforts, he hasn’t been able to reach his own thirty-three-year-old son—a situation that soon requires urgent resolution, because as Poppa Doc tells his son: “I love you, but I’m not proud of you. Make me proud of you before I leave this earth.” In his marvelous debut novel, Travis Hunter has crafted a tale that is funny, sexy, and touching—revealing what it truly means to have the heart of a man.
The Crisis: People who are in rebellion are not the only ones with hard hearts. The dictionary defines hard when it applies to matters of the heart as being "cold; insensitive; callous; unfeeling; unyielding." This malady has stricken every Christian in some area of their life. This is what keeps us from hearing the voice of the Lord and being led by Him in our everyday lives. The Cause: The condition of our heart is determined by what we focus our attention on. It doesn't matter what we know, it's what we think on that controls whether our hearts is hard or soft (Proverbs 23:7). Once this is understood, this same law that will sensitize us towards God can be used to harden us towards the devil. The Cure: The Cure for a hardened heart is a total commitment to keep our minds stayed on the Lord. This teaching will give you one of the clearest understandings of the relationship between faith and unbelief that you have ever had.
The heart of Jesus is sacred, and the lessons and examples it provides to us are paramount in our daily mission to follow in His footsteps. Max Lucado poses the question "what if, for one day and night, your heart was replaced by the heart of Christ?" That thought-provoking question leads to many personal revelations demonstrating that we can recast our hearts to be more like that of Jesus, and the blessings created by the transformation will unleash ripples to the widest edges of our lives and those around us.
The mind is an amazing thing, but it is just part of the heart. Let me explain. When the Bible refers to the metaphorical heart it includes our mind, (our thought life), our desire (our emotions), and our will (our decision making). This makes up our character; who we really are. In this writing I would like to look at the heart of man and then the heart of God. The first three parts of this writing is based on three messages given by Charlie Fizer at the Hiawatha Bible Chapel in Wabasha Minnesota. I have added my thoughts to his teachings plus seeing his teaching was about the heart of man, I am adding a fourth part on the heart of God to round off his lessons on the heart of man. Charlie Fizer is retired from Emmaus Bible College and is now serving the Lord by traveling to small churches across the US and Canada teaching God's Word. He also holds a position as Chaplain in Dubuque, IA. Where he and his wife Darlene live. Charlie and Darlene also served as missionaries in Japan for many years. As we start to look at the heart of man we see something that happens over and over again in all mankind; and this includes men and women alike. When a person sins it happens like this. First the thought is conceived in the mind; we think about something like David did when he looked at Bathsheba and started to lust after her. Then that thought started to develop within, (the heart). It became a desire of the heart. Then by the will one acted on that desire so becoming an act of sin. This is the case for every sin we commit, or action we take whether good or bad. It starts in the thought process of the heart, which is called the mind. We are so programmed to think when we hear the word “heart”, we start to think about the organ in our chest that pumps the blood throughout our bodies. This is true but when we hear the word in the Bible it always mean, the most inner part of man's makeup, except for two places where it meant the organ that pumps blood. It is who you really are. It has to do with your intellect, feelings, your will, and all your desires. It also can mean the most center part of you. It is where everything in you comes from. Let us look at the way we use this word and some of the meanings; the idioms we use. First “at heart.” We use this in reality, fundamentally; basically. Then when we say “break someone's heart” we mean to cause someone to be devastated by sorrow or disappointment. If you say, “I can say that by heart.” you mean you can do it entirely from memory. There are so many more like this, “eat your heart out”, “have a heart”, “have one's heart in the right place”, lose one's heart to”, and this list can go on and on. All this idioms deal with what we are talking about here. If you don't think this subject is important, just think of this. The word “heart” is found 835 times and is in 775 verses in the New King James Bible (NKJV). (A side note: I did a search on BibleGateway.com and searched the entire Bible for the word heart in the New King James Version Bible and it is found 926 times). In any case it is found many time. Let me ask some questions. Have you ever questioned the motivation of your heart? Or have you ever thought yourself to be something? Then maybe you have never read verses like “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” Galatians 6:3, or “If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless.” James 1:26. Maybe one last verse, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9. Wow! This should make us question our hearts all the time, but the truth is not many of us do this. We trust our hearts even though the Bible tells us not to. This will lead us down the wrong path every time. Let us try to understand the heart of man by what the scriptures tell us about it. First the heart is the thinking aspect of man. We read in Proverbs 23:7 NKJV, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” Then Jesus asks in the New Testament, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts.” And again he said “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” There are so many scriptures that tell us this, (Matthew 9:4; 15:19; 24:48, Luke 2:19) just to mention a few. Now the question is, Does it make a difference in the way I think? What does my eternal destiny have to do in the way I think? Or maybe to put it another way, Am I responsible for the way I think? I say a big “YES.” Again the scriptures tell us affirmative, “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.” (Romans 8:6 NKJV). (Remember the mind is part of the heart). Whatever things are true, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” (Philippians 4:8 NKJV). I believe there is a lot said about our thought life because that is where sin starts. We have to remember because of the fall our heart changed. We need a heart transplant which we will talk about later. Now if our thought life is wrong it will now make our actions wrong. Even when we think we are doing good, sin enters in by way of pride, and pride is sin. Are we messed up or what? All right now, after we have wrong thoughts then our desires and will come into play. Our thoughts control our desires, (an emotion) which in turn controls our will, (our actions). With all this in mind, let us move on with this subject. We are going to start a three part study plus one on the heart, which I described above. Let us start with this scripture and Charlie Fizer's first message.
