We hear a lot now-a-days about how men need to “man up”. What exactly does that mean though?

I am not totally sure. What I do know is that we are born male, but we have to choose to be men. With that sentiment I very much agree. Men need to choose to be men.

Sadly our culture is filled with Peter Pans – men who refuse to grow up. It’s been said that boys will be boys and so will middle-aged men. I believe one of the curses of our society is men who are unwilling to be men. Men who are unwilling to take courage and initiative; resist passivity; accept responsibility; press on toward a goal; seek and love God and serve and love others.

Our world is crying out for men who choose to be men of character: men who understand they are meant to be spent for the benefit of others. Our world is hungry for men who are willing to make sacrifices for the greater good in both the grand and the bland: in the extraordinary and the ordinary. Our world is in need of men who truly are choosing to “man up”!

To “man up” is inherently sacrificial. Men spend themselves for the benefit of others; adult ‘boys’ spend others for their own benefit.

A number of years ago I was at a men’s conference in the mountains of Colorado. At the close of one of the sessions we were encouraged to ask the Lord what He was saying to us about how He sees us: “Father, who do you say I am?”

I felt the Lord say to me:

“You are David. I have given you a kingly spirit. I have made you to be a ruler…you are my beloved warrior king…”

I was overwhelmed. And, to be quite frank, I wanted to run from it. I didn’t want to be a ruler. I didn’t want to be a ‘king’. I did not want the responsibility. Deep inside I still wanted to be a boy. I did not want the burden of leadership, of being a ‘man’.

The Lord was gracious with me and began to lead me through His school of manhood and leadership, in the midst of everyday life. It was not easy. It was not fun. Oftentimes it (He) demanded more of me than I believed I was capable of. I wanted to run away so many times. I wanted to escape to a little log cabin in the woods and shut out the world.

However, to do so would be disobedience. To run from my God-given responsibilities would be sin.

Fast forward a few years…I was mountain biking and stopped to spend some time with my Father on a big boulder overlooking the valley. I sheepishly asked God if I could call Him “Dad”. I knew the answer already because we are encouraged in Romans 8 to call Him “Abba” or “Daddy”. However, the reality of that intimacy was still a little foreign to me.

His response broke open my heart:

“May I call you ‘Davie’? You are my beloved son. ‘Davie’ is my term of endearment for you.”

I wasn’t expecting that! To be honest, I just began to cry…

I was a little perplexed however: I thought I was supposed to be a Warrior King, but now I am a Beloved Son. “Davie” is a little boy’s name. Am I a Warrior King or a Beloved Son? Yes. Both/and, not either/or.

We cannot truly “man up” without being a beloved son. We must “boy up” in order to “man up”. The only way we can truly be the men God has created, crafted and called us to be is by first understanding we are His beloved sons in whom He delights.

Real men are also child-like.

Yes, we need to accept responsibility and resist passivity. Yes, we need to take courage and initiative. We need to press on toward goals. We need to seek and love God. And, we need to love and serve others.

However, first and foremost we need to know we are a beloved son of our Heavenly Father.

To “boy up” enables us to “man up”.

1 Corinthians 13:11

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”

Galatians 4:6

“Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’”

2 Corinthians 6:18

“And, ‘I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’”

Matthew 18:3

“And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’”

How do we grow? That’s the million dollar question. In fact, it’s probably the billion dollar question.

By ‘growth’ I don’t mean physically – I mean spiritually. How do we grow in our faith? How do we grow in Truth? How do we grow in character? How do we grow in our relationship with Jesus?

Basically, how do we become better men?

That’s a big nut to crack. Through our work with Wholehearted Men I have the pleasure of working with hundreds of men who want to become better men – who want to grow. And we see huge growth in many men.  However, in others there is not so much growth.

So why do some men seem to grow, and others do not?

I don’t know exactly, but I do know that Jesus told us there are 3 criteria for growth:

“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”

In Luke 8:5-15 Jesus talks about the parable of the sower and the seed. He concludes the parable with that statement about those who produce fruit; the soil in whom the seed grew up into a good crop; the ones who grew in their faith. He outlined the 3 criteria for growth:

1. Hear
2. Retain
3. Persevere

We see this whenever we hold a Wholehearted Men’s conference or boot camp. Everyone in the room has the opportunity to “hear” the Word of God – the Truth. Some truly do hear it. They choose to open their hearts. They choose to humble themselves. They choose to give God permission to work in them. They put aside the distractions of life. They choose to unplug from the matrix and actively listen – expecting to learn.

And subsequently they ‘hear’ the word.

Sadly, others do not unplug. Others do not resist distractions. Others do not embrace humility and grace, get offended by something and end up not hearing the Word of God.

Those who ‘hear’ the Word now have the opportunity to ‘retain’ it. Retaining the Word does not come passively. To retain the Word requires intention and action. Retaining the Word requires remembering it, talking about it, thinking about it, discussing it, studying it and wrestling with it. It’s training in Godliness.

We retain more when we take notes. But the majority of retention takes place after the hearing of the Word. Sure, retention begins during the hearing, but all the heavy lifting is after we have heard the Word.

The current set against us is forgetfulness, so we must intentionally swim upstream against forgetfulness in order to retain the Word. We must spend time in study and prayer asking the Lord to further unfold His Truth to us. We must discuss the Word with others, perhaps at breakfast groups we initiate, or in small groups.  We must meditate on it as we drive, as we walk, as we wait. We must remember it and own it.

We must put it into practice.

We then must ‘persevere’ in the Word. This is hard work because it involves further hearing and retention, but it is primarily about action. It’s about obedience. It’s about surrender and submission. It’s about repenting. It’s about making things right when we mess up and continuing to move forward. It’s about doing good, because faith without deeds is useless.

It’s about not giving up when the going gets tough. It’s about not backing down when we feel overwhelmed. It’s about choosing not to get angry and offended when the Lord cuts across our will – perhaps through someone who rubs us the wrong way. It’s about dying to ourselves so we can live in Christ. Not my will, but yours be done Lord.

This is really about “continuing to work out your salvation with fear and trembling” knowing that it’s “God at work in you to make you both willing and able to work according to His good purpose”. (Philippians 2:12, 13)

The result? Righteous, peace and joy in Jesus; a truly successful life in Christ; becoming the kind of man you want to be – and that God has created, crafted and called you to be.

Hear, retain, and persevere: 3 criteria for great growth in God.

2 Peter 1:5-8

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Timothy 4:7b, 8

“…train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

James 1:2-4

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Have you ever heard the expression, “No pain, no gain.”?

It’s a classic exercise axiom used to express the idea that real physical gains do not come without some degree of pain. It really rose to prominence in the public psyche in 1982 with the popularity of Jane Fonda’s aerobics videos. Viewers were reminded that there is no gain without some pain.

I remember in university an exercise physiology prof telling us that good workouts create discomfort, but should not be causing pain. If your exercise is causing pain then you are probably doing more damage than good.

One of our friends during house group one evening brought up a commonly held Christian axiom that got me thinking about Jane Fonda’s sage exercise advice,

“God will never give you what you can’t handle.”

My friend said, in so many words, that she thought this Christian axiom was a lot of bunk. I agree with her.

The truth is that God often gives us what we can’t handle. Or, perhaps more accurately, He gives us what we think we cannot handle. He does this to strengthen us: to push us outside our comfort zone into the realm of uncertainly in regard to our ability to ‘control’ circumstances.

Back to the physiology of exercise: a critical principal of muscle growth is the “overload principle”. In order for a muscle to grow it must be overloaded beyond what it can currently comfortably handle. In fact, according to the University of New Mexico,

“When muscles undergo intense exercise, as from a resistance training bout, there is trauma to the muscle fibers that is referred to as muscle injury or damage in scientific investigations. This disruption to muscle cell organelles activates satellite cells…to proliferate to the injury site. In essence, a biological effort to repair or replace damaged muscle fibers begins with the satellite cells fusing together and to the muscles fibers, often leading to increases in muscle fiber cross-sectional area or hypertrophy. The satellite cells…fuse to muscle fibers to form new muscle protein stands and/or repair damaged fibers. Thus, the muscle cells’ myofibrils will increase in thickness and number.”

In other words, muscle growth does not occur without “trauma” to the muscle fibres. In essence, no pain, no gain.

I believe it is the same for our spiritual growth.

The Lord often stretches us beyond what we think we can handle in order to shift us out of our own strength into His. Don’t you want to live life with a strength beyond what you are naturally capable of? The only way you can do that is to surrender to the Lord’s gym for the Coach to push you outside your comfort zone and into the faith zone.

Is it comfortable? Nope. Do we usually wish we would not have to go through the process of refinement? Absolutely.

Yet those strengthened in the crucible of God could not become who they are by any other means. For precious metals to be refined there needs to be intense heat. For diamonds to be formed there needs to be intense pressure. For muscles to grow there needs to be trauma. For Godly men to be created there needs to be heat, pressure and trauma – there is no other way.

What feels ‘traumatic’ in your life could very well be the training of God refining you into the man He has created, crafted and called you to be.

“God will not give you what you can’t handle” is not accurate.

A truer axiom is, “The will of God will not take you where the grace of God cannot keep you.”

No matter how difficult your situation is, the grace of God is sufficient for you. And, humility releases the grace of God. Call out for grace amidst the “trauma” in order to embrace the growth the Lord has for you. Humble yourself and surrender to the Coach’s training in order to receive the Coach’s strength.

The process from which you are begging God to deliver you may be the very process He has ordained to refine and strengthen you.

Oftentimes there is no gain without some pain, though we wish it weren’t so.

Hebrews 12:11

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

Romans 5:4

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”

1 Peter 1:6, 7

“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

The coach was standing at the entrance to the rugby pitch with a clipboard in his hand. David could see players practicing on the field behind him. The coach looked up and asked David if he wanted to play.

“What do you mean?”, David inquired.

“We need players. If you want to play you can.”, replied the coach.

David responded with an enthusiastic “yes” and was invited onto the field. However, he was immediately ushered to the edge of the field to a steep ravine and was told by the coach to scramble down the steep slope.

When David got a fair ways down the loose dirt and rock incline he looked up only to see the head coach of the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team standing high above him at the top of the slope. Steve Hanson was surrounded by the All Black players watching David.

He then tossed a rugby ball to David.

David scrambled up the hill to get to the ball, but the ground was very loose. He found it extremely difficult to get his footing. He jumped to catch the ball, but he could not create much power in such shifting ground. The ball sailed over David’s outstretched arms.

Coach Hanson looked down at David and said,

“If you want to be on this team and play in this game you better be able to keep your footing.”

David woke up. Wow – what a dream.

When David asked the Lord what the dream meant he sensed the Lord speaking to him about Truth, and the need to stand on Truth.

There is no way we can play on the team in the game into which we are being called if we do not stand on the Truth. It is imperative we believe the Truth and not the lies of the enemy. The only firm foundation upon which we can stand is the Truth. The only way we can generate the power necessary to move forward in victory is by being rooted in the Truth.

Jesus is the Truth. The Word of God is Truth. Jesus has sent us the Spirit of Truth to guide us in all Truth. We must be filled with and rooted in the Logos (written) Word of God, and the Rema (spoken) Word of God.

Jesus said that His sheep listen to His voice – they listen to the leading of the Spirit of God. He also said that Heaven and Earth will pass away, but His Word will last forever. Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus combated the Whisper Campaign of Satan in the wilderness with the Logos Word of God.

We must get the Word of God into our heart. In Joshua 1 we are exhorted to meditate on the Word of God day and night in order for us to be successful in life. The only way we can take our place in this epic “game’ called the Kingdom of God is if we ensure we are meditating on the Truth of the Word of God – which is the constitution of the Kingdom – so that we will live the way we were created, crafted and called to live. So we live as citizens of the Kingdom of Light, not the Kingdom of Darkness.

Daily devotions are not some cute little religious exercise. Our capacity to live in the freedom of the Kingdom – to be on the team and play the game of the Kingdom – is directly proportional to our willingness and commitment to believe the Truth of God and not the lies of the enemy.

Only by standing on the solid rock of Truth will we have the power to be victorious in the game into which we have been drafted by Jesus. Getting our footing solid is imperative for victorious living. If you find yourself falling short of the life you believe Jesus promised you, then perhaps you are not standing in and on the Truth of God in order to overcome the oppositional lies of the enemy.

You want to start winning?  Keep your footing firm in the Truth of God.  Read it.  Memorize it.  Meditate on it.

John 8:31, 32

“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

John 14:6

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”’

John 16:13

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”