Jesus in Men. Who Are We?
Let’s talk the basics first, keeping us within the lane of this short discussion—Jesus living in us guys, boys, men. Who are we? I think it is something different than the name on our driver’s license or birth certificate.
First, if you identify as a Christian or thinking about it, you are saying you believe in the inerrant words found in a collection of letters and assembled as a book called, the Bible. Well Mark, I don’t know. All of it? There are things that just, well, I have a hard time believing. Yeah? Get in line behind me. But, at least in my experience, it comes with age, so hang in here. I haven’t found or heard an error yet.
If we believe in that book….
It doesn’t involve surgery of any kind. It’s God, through His son Jesus, connecting with us. God lives in us by way of the third branch of the Trinity-the Holy Spirit.
Yeah, so? Well men, that’s a big deal for those of us who have jobs, families, interact with people, breath the air on this planet. It will define our actions, cause us to feel empathy, love sacrificially, control our anger, substitute hatred for compassion. It will define us. We will also fail at it.
Here is something you don’t often hear from anyone talking about god. Men don’t accept the love of God—through Jesus, unless you truly want what it offers. Oh, and like I said, you will fail at it, over and over again throughout your Christian life. That’s where Dad comes in.
‘…forgiveness…’
Eternal love, compassion, caring, never being alone, forgiveness, and when we are done running our lives and come to the end of our seasons, we get to go to our home, our real home—forever at peace and in the physical presence of pure love. Just a snippet of what it offers.
What the hell does that even mean, Mark? Yeah, it’s kind of big, huh? So big you can’t mark its edges. For men especially. We as a sex, are called to lead. Now don’t get yourself all ruffled ladies. You are called to lead too, sometimes called to lead men. Men, you are sometimes called to follow women. That is good. That is God. But I’m talking about men and men have this following/submission issue we struggle with. We sometimes have issues with the pecking order we are made to sometimes follow. Why do I have to work for him/her? I can do the job so much better.
Maybe.
Or, now let’s pretend for a moment we can do many things, but leading by our own definition, might be, well, faulty. What we think we can do, might be true, or maybe a little shewed. Example: the captain of an aircraft carrier-they are in charge. But the captain is not the person you want starting the engines, launching planes, or making sure the meatloaf is cooked. They may have worked as a junior officer in one of those departments, but not now. They have people for that.
God has a plan.
God has a plan. I actually refer to it as The Plan. It’s from God so it is perfect. Even though we look at it and often wonder why. Dad has it and actually doesn’t need to tell us about it. He just wants us to trust Him. Trusting Him means we have even a tiny bit of faith in that trust. That tiny, broken, bent, demonstration of fearful faith, makes Him proud of us—you.
For all the work—tasks we have to do as men—fathers, employees, friends, everything, the world can own us. It will eat us up one bite at a time or in one swallow and most of the time, we don’t even know it until it’s too late. Oh, and if you decide to believe this book and the Jesus fellow in it, then you will have to believe there is Evil and its name is Satan.
And Satan wants to own you. He wants to cause you to limb and fall and stumble and cheat and have a terrible life which may look like the rich and famous-yeah, weird. And without a faith in this God and His son—Satan will own you.
I don’t need this ‘dad’ you refer to.
Mark, really, thanks but I am doing fine. I got a great job, a house on the hill, a beautiful wife, a well stuffed 401. I don’t need this ‘dad’ you refer to.
Then don’t.
What?
Then don’t.
Yeah, then don’t believe. If you got this life, and it sounds like you have all the markers for a human to have a ‘good’ life on this rock, then don’t. If you truly think you got the band width to do the world without the Guy who made it, then don’t believe. But you are following thousands of years of many men doing and thinking the same way. And when they die, our image and knowledge of what happens to them is lost. Only our faith in historical accounts is all we have, and then Their is Jesus.
You got it. Right?
Here is what my faith has done for me. It made me better at what I was supposedly doing so well at. I am deeper, kinder, more intuitive. I love better, both emotionally and physically. Yes, fellow man, I was a better lover. I think what I call ‘sideways thinking’ along with linear. Finding where I enjoyed the moments I had with simple things and complex tasks; I am more patient; I invested my resources better. I could read people and their intentions better like bold newspaper headlines.
Are you willing to bank….
Let me end with this: are you willing to bank all that you have and are, on one roll of the dice, that your thinking on this massively historically studied issue in which you are right and history is wrong? Or, with the simple faith of the Roman Centurian, who one day asked Jesus to heal his servant, and Jesus said show me and the Roman merely said Jesus didn’t need to bother, simply say it is so and it will be so. I want that faith. A faith in something so large, so easy yet so hard for us, it is beyond comprehension.
Jesus in you. That is who you can become. Take the step in believing His plan with your name at the top.
And share this if you want. Share it with your friends and family or that guy that you know is struggling.
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