Living - Brandon Cox

Living with a Bias Toward Action

Passivity is epidemic among us. Especially among men. And it’s killing us. At the beginning of 2018, I told our church staff I was committing to living throughout this year with a “bias toward action.” I don’t know where I first heard that...

Get Me to Rome! Thoughts on Having Big Goals

One of the moments that changed my life significantly occured in 2010 when my wife and I were sitting in our usual spot in the Saddleback Church auditorium and Pastor Rick Warren was kicking off our Decade of Destiny spiritual growth campaign His opening message was...

How to Make Next Year Your Best Year Ever

Think back with me to January One of this year. What were your resolutions? And if you don’t “do” resolutions, what were your intentions? What were your goals and dreams? And how have you done with them? There is a spiritual truth I learned long ago...

Absorbing Correction: A Mark of a Mature Man

I don’t like being corrected or criticized in any way, shape, or form. Do you? I’ve actually never met anyone who welcomed it naturally. It strikes at our pride and evokes a defense mechanism inside of us. However… If you want to grow up on the...

Your Message Matters, So Keep Telling Your Story

Scott walked away from God nearly a decade ago and became an agnostic. Cheryl spent those years praying for a miracle but living in a spiritual mismatch. A couple of weeks ago, Scott came back home because he could no longer deny the reality that God had been pursuing...

In the World, But Not of the World

If you’ve been around traditional evangelicalism long, you’ve no doubt heard that Christian should be “in the world, but not of it.” And there’s a lot of truth in that statement, when it’s rightly understood. The problem is, there...

Does God Want You to Be a 'Successful' Man?

I’m currently preaching a sermon series about success. I know where I’m going with it, but the general public doesn’t, which creates a slight bit of awkwardness because Christians are pretty weird about the idea of success. What do I...

How to Be Successful Like David Brainerd

How do you define success? Most of us think about our net worth, our ranking at work, or our preparedness for a blissful and happy retirement. The problem with success, defined in conventional terms, is that it’s usually a moving target. I create a sort of...

What Life-Giving Labels Are You Proudly Wearing?

Leader and loser are both labels. One, I avoid and the other, I wear gladly. Derwin L. Gray wrote a fantastic book about living under labels called Limitless Life, and I once turned his book into a sermon series. It was a huge hit because we all live under the...

How to Live with Spiritual Confidence

Are you confident? God wants you to be. He doesn’t want you to be arrogant or self-reliant, but He does want you to wake up each morning and face the day with a sense of spiritual confidence, rooted in your relationship with Him. He even went to the trouble of...