Jesus said nothing about pillows and comfortable retirement. He launched the invasion of the kingdom of God into a world held by darkness. He invites you to join him in living in that startling, dangerous, and beautiful Story.
I believe that without the kindred affection of friends, a man is very one-sided. Just as it takes iron to sharpen iron, through the course of navigating relationships, friction and comfort are created, often showing the truth of a man to himself. Without the grinding wheel, the knife would never be sharp, and without one another, unconditional love with humanity would only be a theory. But through my closest relationships, my rough edges have become smooth and sharp.
The world is full of men who want to be right when actually the secret of a man’s strength and his pathway to true honour is his ability to admit fault when he has failed. God wants to fill the church with men who can say they are wrong when they are wrong. A man who is willing to humble himself before God and his family and say, “I was wrong.” will find that his family has all the confidence in the world in him and will much more readily follow him. If he stubbornly refuses to repent or admit he was wrong, their confidence in him and in his leadership erodes.
Women were created from the rib of man to be beside him, not from his head to top him, nor from his feet to be trampled by him, but from under his arm to be protected by him, near to his heart to be loved by him.
Christian men need to stop being defensive and recognize that God has called us to function in unity with our wives. We need to listen to their counsel, consider their opinions, and pray together for the mind of the Lord rather than putting our foot down and shouting, “I am the leader of this family, and what I say goes!”
What’s the opposite of stepping up? Standing still … lying down … becoming a couch potato. …passivity is a disease that robs a man of his purpose while it destroys marriages, ruins families, and spoils legacies. A passive man doesn’t engage; he retreats. He neglects personal responsibility. At its core, passivity is cowardice.
Tell your sons that there is no safe place to hide when one lives in contradiction to the laws of God! Remind them repeatedly and emphatically of the biblical teaching about sexual immorality and why someone who violates those laws not only hurts himself but also wounds the girl and cheats on the man she will eventually marry. Tell them not to take anything that doesn’t belong to them – especially the moral purity of a woman.
A man ought to live so that everybody knows he is a Christian…and most of all, his family ought to know.
God wants men to be free. Free to demonstrate toughness when a situation or relationship demands it. Free to display grit, strength, commitment, and decisiveness under the Holy Spirit’s direction. God also wants me to be free to demonstrate tenderness, sensitivity and humility. Free to be vulnerable enough to foster intimacy and to shed tears. Authentic masculinity produces a divine elasticity in men. Finally they can lead with firmness, then submit with humility. They can challenge with a cutting edge, then encourage with enthusiasm. They can fight aggressively for a just cause, then moments later weep over suffering. Secure, free, authentic men leave a mark – on their colleagues, friends, wives, and especially their children.