Masculinity: Wake Up and Live

If you feel like you’re halfway sleeping in your life–like there are very key pieces that just simply seem to be…missing–then today, I’m going to help you wake up. This is the beginning of your transformation. The pain you’re feeling from, let’s be honest, failure to truly LIVE, can indeed end.

But it will start with you and you alone. Not your wife. Not your job. Not your money.

You.

Friend, what we have is a bunch of Gideons.

And I don’t mean the kind that are leading armies of 300 men to victory against thousands of bloodthirsty enemy warriors.

I mean the kind that are hiding in their father’s winepress out of fear of those very same bloodthirsty enemies. The kind that are locked in timidity, keeping themselves concealed, hoping not to rock the boat too much. Hoping to get by, to wait it out until it’s all over.

Yes, men. We have become Gideons.

I’m not mad at you. I’m not disappointed in you. And I sure as hell am not condemning you. But I’m pissed off at the current and past state of manhood.

And I’m especially pissed off at the state of Christian manhood.

So, I’m calling you higher. I’m calling US higher.

We can do better than this, guys. I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know. Somehow you know that your life isn’t adding up—your two plus two isn’t quite reaching four. But up until now, you haven’t done jack about it. And Christianity—not Jesus, mind you—but Christianity has actually primed you for a mediocre man-sistence.

What do I mean? Well, I’m glad you asked.

The State of Christian Masculinity

We’re told our whole lives, or at least as long as we’ve been following Jesus (for me that’s my whole life), that we need to die to ourselves, lose our lives in order to gain them, turn the other cheek, etc. We’re told that we are worthless despicable sinners who are thankfully, and surprisingly, saved by grace. And let’s add in there that the human heart is deceitfully wicked…so by default OUR human heart must be wicked too.

While we’re in our prayer closet bemoaning how worthless we are and giving up our desires, our initiative, our confidence and our balls, Joe Worldly Millionaire down the street is chugging through life, running business, changing society, donating to charity, having sex, and plain old dominating. And we get this idea that all those things Joe W. Millionaire is doing are evil because, “He doesn’t know Jesus.”

But I’ve got news for…us. Not one of those things he’s doing is bad. Chugging through life? Good. We are more than conquerors…CHECK.

Changing society? Good. We are the aroma of Christ everywhere we go. CHECK.

Having sex? Dang good (as long as it’s with our wives…then it should be even better than Joe’s). Check out the little piece of priceless gold about this in Proverbs 5. Can you find it?

Dominating? Refer back to the more than conquerors thing. Or doing all things through Christ. Or reigning in life with him.

Men Don’t Make Excuses

Here’s the deal. I came to a point in my life, when all the shoot was hitting the fan, where I realized that I had been looking at all the successful non-Christian gents out there and using Jesus as an excuse for my lack of performance.

See, for a man who doesn’t follow Jesus, if his life isn’t adding up to what he wants, he has two options. One, he can wallow in self-pity and play the victim, blaming everyone else for why HIS life sucks. Two, he can take responsibility for his own life and get his s—t together and see some real life change.

But you, O Christian man, you have a life-draining third option that will stop you dead in your tracks in EVERY AREA OF LIFE.

Your option is to look at your sickly finances, your lack of confidence, your flagging marital passion, and your non-dominance-of-life…and to be fine with it! That’s right. You—let’s just say, WE—We get ourselves 30, 40, 50 years into a life that doesn’t look like anything we had ever imagined, and we settle for it! All in the name of, “Your will, not mine.”

We use Jesus as a cop-out, brothers. We believe that if we don’t have money, he’s just not choosing to make us one of the wealthy ones. And it’s somehow more holy.

We believe that, if we’re not seeing success in our pursuits, business or otherwise, it’s okay because we’re in the world and not of it. And the world is supposed to hate us anyway.

That’s no excuse for not getting our hands dirty in this world and CHANGING it. We are called to influence, to engage, to improve, and to be the biggest blessing to our society. Not the rag-tag weaklings sitting on the sidelines hiding behind our theology.

And our sex lives? If the hot and heavy between us and our wives is less than stellar, we beg God to change it. We beg our wives to change it. We ask them what they want from us, then we do it, like a little errand boy. And if none of that works, we continue on in unattractive self-righteous self-pity thinking that Jesus must be growing us and shaping us.

No more. I’m done with that. I’m not settling for any crap anymore, and I sure as hell am not taking “No” for an answer from the mouth of Life.

It’s time you and I man up.

It’s time you and I stop hiding like scared boys in the winepress of false submission to the will of God. What’s really going on is that we’re buying a lie that says it’s holy and close with Jesus to be passive and immature.

The Will of God for Us Men

You want to know the ACTUAL will of God?

Here it is, straight from Scripture:

Be watchful. Be strong. Act like men. Let everything you do be done in love.

Listen. Do you want to know the key? The secret to unlocking all of these stuck areas? It’s to stop looking for your strength from the validation of everyone else around you. It’s time to grow some balls and validate yourself. Be watchful for your own sake…not to make your wife happy. Be strong for your own sake, because that’s the kind of man  you are. That’s who you were destined to be. That’s God’s dream for you. Don’t let culture and misconceptions about Bible verses sell you cheap.

Act like a man. It’s who you are.