Be a Man

The following quote comes from an interview with John Eldridge. John Eldridge is the author of the book Wild at Heart, as well as 24 other books. The commentary is mine and it is primarily directed to all the men I know here. I know it is long, but I have been feeling this way for years. My wife asked me to read/listen to this book. I will not be silent on this subject any longer. I love all of you and would hate to lose my opportunity to witness to you. But that would be up to you. It is long, but I beg you to read with an open mind, please let the spirit touch you. I love you!!

I want to make clear that when referring to “man”, he is not, and I am not speaking about mankind. Wild at Heart, as well as most of Eldredge’s other books, are directed to the Christian man. How God made man. Not woman! His wife, as well as countless others, has written Books for the Christian woman. I agree totally with what I have read/listened to so far, including his position that the church itself has done irreparable harm to the masculinity of man. John Eldredge states, “the church has done damage to masculinity.” As you will read, this is not a topic taught or preached very much anymore. This is a shame because that void of proper teaching, the void of a biblical principle has created a vacuum that has been filled by satan’s deceitful and wrong definition of manhood and false principle of leadership. John Eldredge says the following in an interview that is included with the audiobook.

“(Man) Is made to be fierce. A man is a warrior at heart. He is made for adventure. He is made for risk taking. There is a wildness in us, and you hook that up to the Spirit of God and you get something very very powerful. But you shut that down in a man and then we ask him to play the man; as CS Lewis says, “we castrate and then we bid the gelding be fruitful.”

I don’t know what it is about this world and why people think that you have to be mean or hateful to be a principle centered, a Christ centered, and backbone having man. To all the men reading this, If there is one thing I believe firmly it is that God intended for men to be strong, to be the leader, to provide, to protect, and to preach the word of God over his family. He clearly, and irrefutably gave that responsibility to man. The man is the spiritual head of the family. If you do not get this point, find a different church!

This does NOT mean that I believe God made woman as a second-class citizen, a slave or servant to man, or a rug to be walked on. Quite the contrary! Woman is so precious she deserves the full effort and the full sacrifice of her man. She also has the responsibility to work with the man to make sure the discipleship is true. Nothing is written that a woman has to follow the lead of the spiritual head if that spiritual head is not true (Using true to mean GOD’s truth, not man’s truth). Never forget that woman was created also in the image of God, so how then is she secondary to anything? She was made because God said man was woeful without her. So how then can we, men, say we don’t need her to help deliberate and mistreat the gift God gave us in order that we may be complete? It is not just an abuse against a woman, but an abuse against our own being as she becomes one with us and an abuse against God. Realize the love God had for us men as he created a partner so glorious as the woman. If you don’t get that, find a different church. Understand that what we see today is the result of the curse from the disobedient fall in the garden, women desiring the position of the man, and man abdicating the God ordained position as the head. In other words, the result of the deterioration of manhood today is our own fault.

Today we live in a society that hardly wants to see or hear from real men. Men are told not to be Godly men, but instead told how to be a worldly man, how to be a nice man. We raise our son to be neat, polite, gentle, understanding, and submissive. Then years pass and we have this perfect mild, soft church going man, and when things are falling apart, we look at that same man and say, “Do something!” He doesn’t know how, and no real man stood up to show him. In fact, the outcome of the emasculating attitude is that men have shut down, earning the ridicule society has branded us with. We have abandoned our responsibilities and fail to realize that there will be a divine accountability for that. I’m proud to say, and say boldly, that we should stand up and be men. And that we should NOT DO SO APOLOGETICLY! Men who are grounded by the gospel, driven by the fire that God put into our hearts and into our souls, need to stop letting this world, in particular the feminist movement and the emasculating church that would rather see a softer man, emasculate us. Be a man!

I keep saying that, “be a man”. What do I mean? I think of John the Baptist. Read of him. He boldly called for all people to repent and be baptized. He was not ashamed to talk about our sinfulness and the hell it condemns us to. That would have him attacked today. He would be called the hater; “he is filled with hate”. He is a racist, homophobe, white supremist, and everything else the postmodern lost world label Christian men as. He would be called crazy for talking about end times. He was a man that confronted hypocrisy and the false teaching of the religious. Just like Jesus who called the Pharisees hypocrites. Oh yes, Jesus was a man too. He saw an injustice and he did something about it. Did you forget that about the meek and mild Jesus? Jesus was having none of their garbage, and yes, he called them a name. And in that time, being called a hypocrite, more over- to call a Pharisee a hypocrite, was massively BOLD!!! Back to John- he would be a hater today especially since so many denominations have abandoned the word of God to appease the masses. John told the truth. In fact, he told a truth that got him thrown in jail. The king might have thought, “We cannot let a “man” with guts enough to call a king a sinner run loose”. While in prison for telling the truth, the king’s stepdaughter requested John’s head on a platter, and that is what she got. A lot of churches and leaders in the church today would not even let him teach a Sunday school class because of his forwardness and bluntness. They would refer to him as a bible thumper, too course, too harsh. “I am afraid you will run people off”, they would say. Yet, this man paved the way for Christ to start his ministry. As a man I say I would rather go through life alone with no friends at all but have fully intact my truth, my reputation for being truthful, than to be in the presence of just one “friend” who is a liar, or to be known as simply amiable. For that, I love John the Baptist. The greatest of all qualities of John the Baptist is that he submitted himself to the authority of Jesus. He knew he was not worthy to baptize Jesus and didn’t want to do it because of that reason. He was not being coy; he was being real. For all the man that he was, John knew he was not God, he was not the power, he was not the authority. He gladly took the subordinate role to his LORD. However, John was a leader and had a following of his own. He focused on fasting and prayer to God. His leadership produced disciples that were certainly a force in the Christian movement. THAT IS A MAN!!! And what did Jesus say of this MAN? Did he agree with those today who would reject John? No! Jesus said, “I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” Matthew 11:11. I wonder why Jesus started with, I tell you the truth. Is it because perhaps people would want to disagree because they knew of John’s forwardness? Maybe Jesus wanted to shut up the heretics by saying, “I don’t care what your opinion is, I tell you this is the truth and so let it be so- AMEN.” The truthful John the Baptist is the greatest man on earth. I could only dream that my life would have earned such a distinction. But I am nothing close. Its time to make a change.

Quick note, the meek and mild Jesus that the postmodern world church is framing as this soft spoken and meek/weak character went to the cross because the world did not want to hear the truth he was saying. He came here because of sin. Not because of love. He came out of love for us, but he came because of sin. He told the truth about sin. He named sin, so the world could not dismiss sin. IF you cannot get that point you are missing everything else and you should find another church.

Jesus told a lot of truth that we breeze by these days. Mostly because we want truth to be up to our own perspective, “Postmodern Perspectivism”. We don’t want God’s truth. A real man understands that there is no truth other than the objective unchangeable truth of God. Understand that being a man is not about this world’s power and authority. A real man understands power and authority comes from God in heaven himself because any other source would be flawed. A real man understands that his role is accountability and responsibility. Take leadership MEN with those two things in mind. We serve a truthful God. A God that is pure truth. When is the last time your church had a study or even a sermon on John the Baptist? When is the last time you heard a call for men to be bold like John the Baptist? When is the last time you heard a study or sermon where Christ was delivered as a bold preacher, and where men were called to be truthful? If you’re not getting that, find another church.

The truth stings, it hurts. Be MEN my brothers!!! Never forget that our service is to God first. This is incredibly important because our truthfulness should always be filled with love. Our delivery should be as kind as possible. Our God loved us enough to send us his son, he loved us first. We need to be filled with love for our fellow man (here and only here I mean mankind). But we should never water down the truth. I think of the rich man who came to Jesus and asked him what he had to do to follow him. Jesus looked at him and told him that he needed to sell off all that he had and give it to the poor. He had to get rid of everything in order to follow him. Quick note, that is a condition. There is no following God without a sacrifice. It is not only about a verbal declaration. It is a lifestyle, a change that is required because of sin. Again, if you don’t get that point, find a different church. There are so many lessons here but right now I just want to look at the delivery and some things Jesus did NOT do. The delivery was blunt, but plain spoken. I am certain Jesus did not yell at him. Jesus also did not mince his words. I am equally certain that Jesus loved him. How different would our faith be if we were to think Jesus was being unloving with this creation of his? Notice Jesus did not warm the guy up. He did not preface his remarks with something like, “I know you won’t like this, and I am sorry for that but…” If I hear another self-ordained so-called Sunday school teacher or preacher/pastor apologize for delivering the word of God I will puke!! Its God’s word, it is truth. You do NOT apologize for truth because you think the person you are talking to might be offended. That is what hugs are for. That is what discipleship is for, to help the wounded get restored. That is between them and God. Perhaps they need some more one on one remedial attention/education. Perhaps they need to find a different church that is more truthful with its congregates. Back to the rich man- Jesus did not water down the truth, Jesus just told the man the answer to the question. Did Jesus know the man would walk away and choose not to follow? He is God so I must think yes! Did Jesus stop the guy from walking away, did he call him back and say, “let’s make a deal”? No. Did he beg the guy to reconsider? Did he find a thousand words of fluff or decide to say that although he said it, he didn’t really mean it or that it is okay if he sells only part or maybe chose not to sell anything at all? Did he answer the rich man by asking him what he thinks he needs to do or tell him that whatever his postmodern perspective tells him will be fine? Did he worry about the numbers dwindling in his following when the man chose to walk away? Did he worry about a lesser amount in the offering plate? Did Jesus grab a hold of the guy and demand that he do it? Did Jesus lay awake at night worrying about what that rich man thought of him or his church? No! To all of these NO, NO, NO! He told the truth. He let the man make his own decision and then he let him walk away. That’s how this works! If you don’t get the power of this thing we call free will, find a different church. Jesus was ALL man. He was not abusive, disrespectful, mean, hateful, selfish or anything else the world of today would label him with. He kindly, lovingly, and BOLDLY told the simple truth. If you are putting parallel relationship before the perpendicular relationship, you are NOT serving God. You are serving yourself. You most likely need to find a different church that teaches truth and emphasizes discipleship according to biblical doctrine, not the world’s perspective. Be MEN!!!!!

More to Come. I love you too much to lie to you!