dothovercome-blog

[dothovercome-blog]

For the Love of God, Grow Up

Pastor Mark Driscoll once said America’s most prominent problem wasn’t terrorism or mass murder or racism but masculinity. Proper, biblical, authentic masculinity is absent in our post-modern culture, and it doesn’t take an expert to see that. We espouse to be manly, but we are merely boys who can shave and vote.

So, we can admit we have a problem: we don’t know what masculinity is. It seems the men who seem to have it figured out, who have to continually declare their “alpha-ness” are the one who doesn't have a clue themselves. They are the ones who espouse Jesus but are watching porn and cheating on their wife behind closed doors. Christ called them “white-washed tombs” – beautiful on the outside but filth on the inside. Is that what we follow? Do I grab up my ax, put on my flannel, affix my baseball cap, and follow my ancestors of old? Do I do the same thing my forefathers did? The definition of crazy is doing the same thing a hundred times expecting a different result each time.

Our Playboy-fixed society places happiness as the ultimate prize and tells us that whatever makes us happy is right, and anyone who wants to call us on our $%&* is a hater and should be disregarded. It doesn’t matter who we have sex with, what we smoke, how much we drink, or how we speak to others – if we are happy, then we are fine. I italicize “happy” because that stuff produces a false happiness. Varying sources state the divorce rate in the US is 50%. According to that statistic, half of every couple that gets married will get divorced. Instead of teaching us to woo women, searching for the right one, we find a girl that makes us happy and puts out, calling it love. We move her in before marrying her, and as long as she doesn’t annoy us, we get her a ring. Then, after a couple of kids and a couple of flings at work, we divorce her after she really sees how broken we are. How exactly does this make us happy? How can us, as Christ-followers, espouse this is masculinity while affirming the Bible is right because this system of life is directly opposite to what the Bible teaches. Directly opposite to what God wants.

We are the same society who thought the Hugh Hefner was to be emulated, despite the fact he forced his Playboy bunnies to have sex with him after he would get hopped up on pills. Wrinkly, saggy Hugh Heffner is NOT the picture of masculinity. Jesus Christ is. Perfect man, Son of God, the second person of the Trinity who lived a perfect life, took a ghastly punishment and hung on a cross when He could have easily wiped everyone out with a word. That’s a man. The supreme and sovereign who Revelation 19 says is going to come back, tatted, carrying a sword to strike down His enemies. That’s a man. Alpha, beta is all crap. Masculinity is having your flesh ripped out, grabbing a hunk of wood, and carrying it up Golgotha to be nailed to it and hang for three hours. That’s a man, all others are counterfeit.

Micah 6 lays out precisely what a man should be. “Mankind, he has told each of you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Us, wholly insufficient, wretched people are required to do three things under the umbrella of biblical masculinity: act justly, love faithfulness, and walk humbly with God. Not be manly, grow a beard, see how many girls you can flirt with, or talk about how many people you can fight. You see, our society has gotten it wrong, and continues to. We have been robbed of true masculinity and given counterfeit. So, for the love of God, grow up.