Hello, Mighty Men of God, Joe Martin here, man-builder, award-winning speaker, author, and Tanya's

husband and Kendall and Faith's dad. Welcome to the Real Men Connect podcast where we help good men become

great men God's way. Every Wednesday, we interview some of the nation's most respected

and accomplished men of faith to find out what it really takes to become the kind of husband,

father, and spiritual leader God called and created us to be. Today is the real men check-in. The real men check-in is just a quick way to help you start your week on the right foot in the right way. Every Monday, I share personal insights, encouragement, and support that will move you beyond church to real change. I keep it short, I make it fun and then I'm done. So let's get

started. Real men are God made, not self-made. That's right, you heard me. I say real men are

God made, not self-made. Now I heard someone once say, show me a man who's self-made and I'll show

your man with a fool for a creator. Ouch. See, we live in a society that values and reveres what we call the self-made man. The man who's able to pull himself up by his own bootstraps, the man who can make his own way in the world, the man who can control his own destiny, the man who becomes the master of his fate. However, if you read in Deuteronomy

chapter 8 like I did this past week, you'll see that God sees the self-made man a little

differently than we do. Now, in full disclosure, this chapter cut a little bit too close for me

for comfort. I'll explain shortly, but allow me to read just a few passages to you from Deuteronomy

chapter 8, starting in verse 11.

Check this out. Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments

and his ordinances and his statues which I am commanding you today.

Verse 12 goes on and says otherwise when you have eaten and are satisfied and have built good

houses and lived in them and when your herds and your satisfied and have built good houses and lived in them,

and when your herds and your flocks multiply and your silver and gold multiply and all that you have

multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought

you out from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery.

Now, but the revealing verse, at least for me, comes in verse 18 when it says,

But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who has given you power to make wealth,

that He may confirm His covenant which he swore to your fathers as it is this day.

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