So You Call Yourself a Man? Don’t Just Act Like a Man; BE a Man.

 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judg 21:25)~~ Men are more zealous to assert and support their own authority than submit to that of God. They would act better to repent of their rash oaths, bring sin-offerings, and seek forgiveness in the appointed way, rather than attempt to avoid the guilt of perjury by actions so wrong. That men can advise others to acts of treachery or violence, out of a sense of duty, forms a strong proof of the blindness of the human mind when left to itself, and of the fatal effects of a conscience under ignorance and error.

There’s a growing phenomenon of young men who don’t seem to want to grow up.  They drift from job to job, live with parents or run with a crew of buddies, and focus much of their energy on drinking, carousing, watching sports, playing video games, and chasing women. What makes this generation of young men different from previous ones is that many are delaying maturity longer than before, and our culture is encouraging them to prolong adolescent behavior. It is a stage of life where guys gather to be guys with each other, unhassled by the demands of parents, wives, girlfriends, job, kids, and the other nuisances of adult life. In this topsy-turvy, Peter-Pan mindset, young men shirk the responsibilities of adulthood and remain fixated on the trappings of boyhood, while the boys they still are struggle heroically to prove that they are real men despite all of their actions and evidence to the contrary. It’s as if these young men have developed a warped idea of manhood.  They think becoming a man means getting to do whatever they want.  So for them, being a man means giving up their cherished independence. With that type of mindset, you wonder what type of husbands and fathers they will be when they finally set aside their childish ways. Our sinful, human nature craves independence; we want to go our own way, and avoid the responsibilities of commitment to God and to other people.  As Isaiah 53:6 tells us, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.”  We live in a culture that celebrates youth and beauty and independence—even at the expense of growing up.  Many young men today immerse themselves in a world of media entertainment and diversions that tell them it’s okay to live a self-centered lifestyle, free of commitments to anything beyond endless and mindless pleasure. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them (Rom 1:28-32). A man cannot be brought to greater slavery than to be given up to his own lusts!!

In a world like this, where can men—young and old—learn how to become real men?  The simple answer is:  From other men.  Whether we are young or old, we need other men in our lives who will teach us, model for us, and encourage us to make the right choices. Boys growing up without fathers need men who will step into their lives and mentor them. And young men who refuse to grow up need peers and mentors who will exhort them to act like men. There is a constant call by the species of “man” for “men” to be what God calls us to be… Men… in more senses of the word than being over 18 and having the ability to make a baby, pound our chest and seek freedom and independence to go out and act … childish because we can!  While none of us ever outgrow the need for having other men to mentor us, it is an absolute essential for those who would seem to have their teenage tendencies still pretty strong inside. Every man has a need for people around him who can call him up and even call him out.

Being a man means taking responsibility—for your choices, for your family, for your community, and for the next generation.  Men, husbands and fathers: WE need to step up and take responsibility. Boys – it’s time to MAN-UP! 

God Created Greatness in You. Shine that Light!

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under the grain- measure, but on a lampstand. And it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven (Matt 5:14-16)~ what God has blessed you with is meant to be seen as a beacon to show others toward Him! People will see how God has “brightened” you up and some of that light will guide their path too! You praised the Lord and He is taking you places…heck, I’m gonna praise Him myself…who knows where I might get!!! Fellow lighthouse! Don’t hide the “light” God has given you! Even the unbeliever will see you and start to believe!

God has a plan today… and it includes YOU! – –

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations (Jer 1:5)~ imagine this…better yet, KNOW this: YOU are part of God’s excellent plan for today. After God created the universe and populated it with life, He focused all His creative power on His final masterpiece.  In an instant of time, He created man in His image so that with the life that He gives, you bear the likeness of God. Realize this! God embedded HIS excellence into the core of YOUR being.  From the top of your head to the tip of your miraculous big toe, you are excellent through and through.  God has a plan for your life custom designed for just you, and that plan has excellence stamped all over it. You matter to Him that much! Yes– You are that important! You are fearfully and wonderfully made; A part of His wonderful works. Great is His mercy towards you, precious and vast are His thoughts toward you! God says to you: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope (Jer 29:11). Rejoice in Him today as you live out the plans He has for you!

Don’t focus on the world’s messes; but look to that which The Lord blesses! #FFF –

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth (Col 3:2); But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness (1 Tim 6:11)~ It ill becomes any person, but especially a person of God, to set their hearts upon the things of this world; people of God should be taken up with the things of God. There must be a conflict with corruption, and temptations, and the powers of darkness. Eternal life is the crown proposed for our encouragement and we are called to lay hold on that. As Heaven and Earth are contrary one to the other, both cannot be followed together; and affection to the one will weaken and remove affection to the other… after all, no man can serve two masters; he will love one and despise the other. And take caution to yourselves, watching out that at any time your hearts be over burdened with wreckless living and drunkenness, worries and cares of this life, and so that day comes upon you suddenly. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man (Luke 21:34-36). Our danger is that the day of death and of judgment should come upon us when we are not prepared; that, when we are called to meet our Lord, that what will be the furthest from our thoughts, is that which ought to be nearest our hearts. This is unfortunately how it will come upon the most of men, who dwell upon the earth, and mind earthly things, and have no focus with heaven. There is so much going on around us right now and everywhere, people are constantly consumed with emotion and distracted by the happenings in the world. All of these things going on are distractions to take your mind off of the peace of God. Remember, the enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy. Jesus came that we may have life and have it more abundantly. Remember, He will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is stayed on Him! Don’t lose your focus on the Lord because He is the source of all peace and life and joy! Faith and Focus to the Finish!

You know better; So do better so you can DO better —

And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for you serve the Lord Christ (Col 3:23-24)~ Today’s society accepts mediocrity as the norm. People do as little as they can to get by, always looking for the easy way out, the favor and the hookup. They simply go to work to pick up a paycheck, then wonder why they’re not promoted. Men and women in marriages take the attitude that as long as they’re THERE, the rest will work out, then we end up in divorce court over infidelity and ‘irreconcilable differences’. We get all of our learning from Social Media and then wonder how we can be uneducated and misinformed. Parents let X-Box, PlayStation, HBO, MTV and BET teach their kids about life, and ask ‘why’ when we’re getting them out of jail or burying them! We follow actors and entertainers on Facebook and Twitter, looking wisdom from anybody who will gather a large crowd of supporters, without any moral consideration, party all night on Saturday, sleep in and watch the game on Sunday… And we don’t even know our Lord and Savior! We all need to do better!!! Whatever we do, we should be doing it to the BEST of our ability. Each of us has a higher and very attainable potential, but we can’t settle for average effort and expect stellar results! You know better, so do better so you can DO better!  #AintNoHalfSteppin
 

Patience in God’s Process will bring promises along the way to THE Promise –

TRUST in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths (Prov 3:5-6)~ God’s promise to us has a process. Take the Israelites when they were brought out of Egypt. They wanted instant ‘Promised Land’. But God had a process! The process was for them to be delivered, healed and set free from their past. Many of the Israelites though were not willing to go through the process and as a result of their impatience and actions, they missed the opportunity to go into the Promised Land. God’s plan wasn’t  fast enough! The small victories along the way weren’t big enough! They got so wrapped up in the rewards of the Promise…they had to have it “right now” and so they pursued it in their own ways rather than the ways of God. We need to see that if we will just walk through the process, we will continually see blessings and miracles making us gradually better along the way. Not only will we see, we will experience and receive. As you pray for your ‘Promised Land’, don’t be discouraged that you may have to cross a ‘Red Sea’ and take a journey through the ‘desert’ for a period. That journey is God’s process. And what a journey to walk, especially when you are walking it out with The Lord. Allow yourself to see what He’s doing with and for you along the way. You’ll find so many blessings in that itself! You’ll be glad to have gone the process route over the convenience of instant gratification. 

Forgive and Move On; Harbored Hatred Hinders Healing! –

…forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before (Phil 3:13); He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19)~~  Life is full of change – every fraction of every moment is a change from the last. Like the goals and hopes and dreams we all look forward to, everything about everything…has some form of change. Sometimes we embrace it, many times we fight it. All in all, we must look at change as moving forward. This change is not always a transformation, but it is a moving on from what has been to what is and what is to come. The greatest part of it all is that God also was, is and is to come…so we never have to go through “change” alone or in a hopeless state. There is something about change that we must learn to accept if we are to be better about the commandments of Christ to love God and love our neighbors (Matt 22:37,39). We must realize and accept the fact that people change – people move on. In fact, people change more than we think. Unfortunately most of the time we don’t see the change in people because we’re too busy looking at what they used to be and how they used to do. Here we are in a new day with new mercies but we continue to hold on to those things of yesterday! The light has changed, but we are sitting there looking in the rear view mirror. We can learn a good lesson from the Lord in that once we say we have forgiven and we say we have moved on that those things that offended us in the past should be left in the past and not allowed to be brought back up into our lives as an excuse for holding onto anger. Not that what was done is suddenly okay but that if we have truly forgiven a person it should mean that thing is thrown into the sea of forgetfulness and we should honor the no fishing sign posted at the shore. You can probably think of a place in your life where you’ve claimed and even truly intended to have moved on, but there is that someone that seems to always know and remember who and what you were and what you did back then! Oh how you would love to have them move on as you have rather than always remind you of the past! Just as you’d rather they move on, you must do the same! Put that grudge down! Indeed one of the biggest adversaries of our mind is our memory of the past. Forgiveness indeed places a responsibility on us. Just as we would expect a person who repents to honor their repentance, we are expected to honor our forgiveness of them. If we stop judging a person by looking at the past just long enough, we might just see the change that we so eagerly looked for in them. Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old…Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it (Isa 43:18-19). You will not see the new things God has for you if you keep focusing on the old things! Yesterday’s blessings and mercies were for yesterday – God’s mercies are NEW every morning (Lam 3:23). Yesterday’s angers, faults and troubles need to be left in yesterday – be ye angry and sin not; let the sun not set on your anger (Eph 4:26) – Forgive and move on…Harbored Hatred Hinders Healing!

Thanks for reading! God Bless!

God has the Light on for you!

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him (Luke 15:17-20)~ No matter how far anyone has wandered away from God, no matter how deep we have gone into sin, whenever we turn around…God is right there to receive us with open arms! God doesn’t care what we’ve done in our past! He only cares about what we’re doing right now and what we will do in our future! Thanks to the finished work of Jesus, no one ever has to be lost because of their past sins. We are only lost because we will not surrender, repent, and accept what Jesus has done for us. If you have strayed away in your life, just turn around and come back. YES, it’s that simple…no working it off, earning forgiveness or proving yourself worthy! Christ has done the work, by Grace He has forgiven us. We in our guilt tend to feel like we’re not worthy of His grace, but my friend, we’re SO worthy that He gave His life to prove it! YOU are restored in relationship and covenant; redeemed of everything that separated you and reconciled to FULL authority and inheritance as a child of the Lord! God is eagerly awaiting you and will see you from Heaven as soon as you start to return to Him and He will draw you back to Him and meet you on the way – and what a meeting that is! Don’t stay away friend! God has the light from Heaven focused on you – waiting for you to turn and come Home! Just Come on Back!

The Forgiving Heart is the Forgiven Heart

Then came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, “I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven” (Matt 18:22)~ there we have it– you just keep forgiving– whether the offense against you happened once or it keeps happening- it’s not about how many times or who started it, it’s time you get over that grudge– that actually does you more damage than the person you carry it against! After all, WHO is the one that’s mad? WHO is walking around with an imbalanced temperament? WHOSE blood pressure is up because they’re being mad just because they want to be? Stop justifying your selfish anger and get over yourself cause that’s what you’re doing .. Making it all about YOU!  Time to let go and love the unlovable, pardon the unpardonable, believe the unbelievable and hope when everything seems hopeless. YOU need to forgive the petty mess that’s going on between you and “them”. It’s not about who’s at fault or who apologizes first. But since you made it about YOU, YOU NEED to forgive. See, others don’t need your forgiveness nearly as much as YOU need it yourself. It’s YOUR heart that is hard because YOU haven’t forgiven; YOU are carrying carry heavy burdens…YOU are weighing yourself down more and more with stress just by holding that grudge! Every excuse you make to justify your anger, grudge and unforgiveness just makes the burden heavier on YOU! There is only one way to lift this load. ForGIVE it away!!! Every ounce of forGIVEness you dispense to others lifts off the burden that YOU bear. The forgiving heart is the forgiven heart. You can experience the freedom and healing power of forGIVING away the burdens of unforgiveness. Each of us has that one grudge that we haven’t let go of…and what is it doing? It’s enslaving YOU in burdens of anger and rage…for what?? My friend, life is too precious and too short to stay mad at them over some petty trivial junk whether it happened way back when or yesterday! Holding back forgiveness is like standing in an open cell and refusing to walk out. Stop imprisoning yourself!!! Christ set us free in His forgiveness of our sins for eternity. The prison doors that held you have been opened….but you need to embrace your freedom and walk out into that freedom! Give up that pride and make yourself thankful for mending that tear in that relationship! It’s truly liberating! 

Change Happens When Change Happens #RESET

Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments (Gen 35:2) ~~ Our garments are our intermingling with the world. Over time and experience, we start to look like what we have been in, around and through and who we were hanging with during it all. Some things good, some things WE think are good and some things not good at all. Those things that take our time, devotion, money, etc… away from God become our gods. They rule over us, they guide our decisions in our lives, they set the course of direction for us and the future generations that we impact; they literally define our destiny. We need to make a change and do a “reset”. We must break way from things that hinder our relationship with God – We need to literally and sometimes physically remove ourselves from those things. WE know our habits and vices that are holding us down. We also fight it because to separate ourselves from them in some cases will be challenging,  painful,  stressful and even devastating. This might bring on a pain that we might feel is like we would experience death…and in reality, in order for us to “reset”, something in us, about us, of us… has to die that we may live in the abundance of Christ’s promise (John 10:10). There can be no purification without separation; and there can be no separation without agitation, discomfort or change. We all want the abundant, prosperous and blessed life that Jesus promises, but we have to realize that change only happens when change really happens! God called Abraham to change where he was…get out of that comfortable land…so that he could see the promise God had in store for him. God called Noah to build the ark for the coming storm rather than sit and wait for it to happen, He called Moses to deal with the fears of his own abilities and trust what God would do so that he could lead the Israelites out of Egypt to reach the promised land. Friend, YOU will have to make a change in your life to see a change in your life. It won’t be comfortable, it will probably hurt in some areas because you’re going to have to leave things (and people) behind, you will have to take some actions, YOU have to make changes to be able to see changes, and you will have to face your fears and you’ll HAVE to have a relationship and trust God to help you do what you have to do.  It’s time to hit the reset button…Walk away from those things that you KNOW are not good for you, keeping you from your relationship with God, trust Him, make the changes you know you need to make… you will endure the hurt, but you will also survive it…and walk in God’s blessing!