2026 Week 13 GraceMen Weekly Update

This Week:
1. Prayer
2. Meditation
3. Quote
4. Events
5. Book Recommendation

Brothers,

As we come into Week 13, many of us are carrying more Bible information than ever, yet still sensing places where our lives lag behind what we know. James speaks right into that gap when he calls us to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” $$James 1:22$$. In a year where we are asking God to renew our minds, this is His kindly exposing work, refusing to let us settle for nodding along on Sunday while nothing really changes on Thursday afternoon. As you pray this week, ask the Lord to put His spotlight on one clear thing you have already heard from His word, and then to give you both the desire and the strength to actually walk it out in the real details of your life.

What kind of real‑life situation are you most hoping this week’s focus will speak into?

Prayer:

Lord, help me to be a doer of the word, and not a hearer only, deceiving myself. (James 1:22)

James 1:22  - But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Meditation: 

Information without application leads to spiritual delusion. What is one specific command you heard this week that you need to do?

Quote:

“We are then doers of the word, when, being enlightened by its doctrines, awed by its threatenings, and encouraged by its promises, we, through the aid of divine grace, love and obey its precepts.”   Rev. Joseph Benson (commentary)

Events:

Thursday - March 26, 2026

• Morning Bible Study - 6am thru 7:15am 
• At the Church in the Prayer Room
• Beginning our new series "Everyday Wisdom: Walking with Christ & One Another through the Book of Proverbs"
• This weeks topic "Feeling Anxious".

Saturday - March 28, 2026

Morning Bible Study - 7am

• This week we are starting the study of Leviticus.
• A Study Guide will be provided. 

Book Recommendation:

Practical Godliness: The Ornament of All Religion by Vincent Alsop

In a day when many men feel the gap between what they confess on Sunday and how they live on Monday, Practical Godliness: The Ornament of All Religion offers a bracing, hopeful path toward integrity of life. Vincent Alsop, a seasoned Puritan pastor, takes Titus 2:10—“adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things”—and presses it into the details of ordinary male responsibility: work, family, speech, money, and purity. This is not a book about winning arguments; it is a book about becoming the kind of man whose life makes the gospel believable.

Men are constantly told to “be leaders,” but Alsop quietly shows that the most compelling leadership is **holiness**. He argues that righteousness is “Evangelium visibile”—the visible preaching of the gospel that even unbelievers can understand. When a man deals justly in business, disciplines his words, keeps his promises, and bears suffering with humility, he “retrieves the credit” of religion more effectively than by any amount of clever talk. For husbands, fathers, and single men alike, Alsop’s emphasis on family worship, conscientious use of the Lord’s Day, and integrity in all dealings offers a concrete blueprint for godly masculinity in a distracted and compromised age.

At the same time, this book refuses to flatter. It exposes the idols that quietly master men—self‑reliance, love of reputation, addiction to comfort, even vanity about appearance—and calls us to repentance so that Christ, not our ego, is what people see. Yet Alsop never leaves the reader in despair: the same grace that humbles a man also strengthens him to “adorn” the doctrine he believes. Men who are tired of shallow religious talk and hungry for a deep, durable godliness will find in this work both a mirror and a map, leading them to walk with God in humility, courage, and everyday obedience.

New Blog Posts This Week:

Training Like an Athlete of Christ

Developing Self-Control in a Permissive Culture

Coram Deo,
GraceMen