MAN UP!

Wow...it has been awhile since my last post. Since I am home now, I think I might be posting more now than I have in the past months, but we shall see. Lately though, I have really noticed the Lord working in my heart about the men in this world including myself. I mean honestly I look around seeing all the things society tells us to be.

Society tells us that we need to be masculine, and pride ourselves in the fact that we can beat the living snot out of another guy. The media depicts men as dirty, grimy, and drunken people who only look for sex and look at women as the source of that pleasure. We as men in this society are told to be prideful, that it is okay to engorge ourselves with lust and sex, no matter how we get it. From forcing our girlfriends to meeting that addiction or from sitting in front of computer screens to get our fix. You kind of get the idea right? We are starting to desensitize ourselves from these things, and we fall into the so called "norms" of this society.

I know how hard this can be. I used to do those things, and I used to be full of lust and temptation. I am not going to sit here and tell you that I do not lustfully look at women sometimes, and that I have not struggled with temptation. I have been sucked into pornography in my past, and I work daily at not looking at it. You are not going to just poof not have anymore lust and things like that. It is a daily grind, and you need to actually work at it. Honestly, I can not tell you how many times I have given in to the temptation. It is hard, but it is worth it.

We as men of God and followers of Christ are called to be more than just the average man of society. We are called to be Christ-like, to live our lives modeled by him, but also humble ourselves to the fact that we can't live like him. That we can't be perfect without Jesus there to sacrifice himself for my sin. That if we call ourselves Christians and believe that God is out there looking down upon us, then we need to put Him first in our lives. He needs to be put before our lust, our temptations to drink, our pride, our urge to be "the man," and finally above what other men think of us.

I really believe that being a man has nothing to do with your age, how many times you have had sex, the amount of weight you can bench, the amount of beer you can drink, and finally by how "good" you look with your shirt off. A man is someone who can lead, be pure, honest, loving, respectful to women, and be humble in the sight of the Lord. I just ask all you men out there. What are we doing?

A song that really speaks to this is Temptation by 116 Clique:
"Manning up is not just managing your sexual temptations
It's not just managing your sin that's not what it means to be a man
Because you can try harder and you can do better
And you can hang on longer that's not manning up
Manning up is our ability to lay down all of our effort
And all of our trying and all of our strength and say I trust in Jesus
I trust in his perfection I trust in his power I trust in his resurrection
Because he's the only one that can get me through this
And he's the only one that can make me free"

I am sick of being only the man that society thinks that I can be. I am ready to be a man according to what the Lord wants me to be in His Word. Are you?