Men

If you go back to Genesis 1 and 2 and look at the creation account of when the Lord started the world, I see three key things the Lord has designed and called Godly men to do with their lives.  I’ll call them the 3 W’s of life.

As godly men, we’ve been called to worship the Lord. 

It all starts here.  This is the foundation, base, and rock upon which our lives are built.  If we don’t start here or build our lives on anything else, then it is the equivalent of building our lives on sands that shift and move.

Genesis 1:26-27 says, “²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness… ²⁷ So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God…”

Genesis 2:7 says, “Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.”

He is our Creator.  We are created by Him.  He has given us the breath in our lungs.  And He’s called us to then respond in worship.  Worship can seem like an abstract thought, or just what we do when we sing on Sundays.  Here are 10 ways to help us think about worship.  To worship the Lord means…

• We love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. He has our affections.
• We live in daily awe of His greatness, power, holiness, and majesty.
• We respect and honor Him, and live under His authority.
• We follow His ways and lean on His understanding, and not our own.
• We reject living for idols or placing anything or anyone, including ourselves, greater than Him.
• We live in daily trust and faith in Him.
• We spend time with Him in daily relationship by hearing Him speak through His Word and talking to Him in prayer.
• We choose to live in a way where we ‘bow our knees’ to Him because He is God and we are not.
• We pursue humility because He gives grace to the humble, but opposes the proud.
• We do not take for granted the breath He has given to us, and instead, respond with gratitude.

He has formed you before your parents knew you.  He has given you breath and life.  You have been made in His image, fearfully and wonderfully made.  So we don’t disregard how good He has been to us, but we respond in worship of Him.

To pursue and live the life the Lord has called you to live, it starts with worship.  Who will you ultimately live for in this life?  May it be the Lord Jesus, the One who has died and rose again for you.

As godly men, we’ve also been called to work for the Lord.   

We’ve been designed to work.  It started in the Garden of Eden.

Genesis 2:8, 15 says, “⁸ The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed… ¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.

This doesn’t mean that we should all be farmers and gardeners.  But it does mean that we’ve been called by God to a life of work.  We’ve been designed to create, lead, build, manage, solve problems, and serve.

And Colossians 3 reminds us that we work ultimately for the Lord.  That how we work, should be a reflection of who we worship.  Listen to these two verses:

• Colossians 3:17, “And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the nameof the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
• Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people.”

Notice that in both verses, the word ‘whatever’ shows up.  It is all encompassing.  Whatever we do.  So not just in the jobs we get paid for, but whatever we do, it is to be for the glory of God.  So whether it is serving around the home or serving in your job that gives you a W-2…all of it is to be done with the goal to reflect the greatness of the One who has given you breath and life.

Here are four practical ideas of what that kind of life of work looks like:

• We should go to bed tired every day. We should have exhausted ourselves by working and serving those around us.
• We should pursue excellence in what we do. So half-hearted or half-done work is not glorifying to God.
• We should pray, in the midst of our work, that the Lord would enable and empower us to glorify and reflect Him.
• We should reject grumbling and complaining in our work. We should instead work joyfully unto the Lord.

To pursue and live the life the Lord has called you to live, be a man who works hard for God’s glory and the good of those around you.

As godly men, we’ve also been called to pursue, care for, and love a Godly wife for life.     

(Note:  I’m not assuming that all men will be married or should be.  Nor am I implying that to remain single is contrary to what Scripture teaches, because that would be ignoring the breadth of the teaching of Scripture (i.e.: 1 Corinthians 7, Jesus’ life of singleness).  But for the sake of this blog post and either men who are married or will be called to that someday, I share this encouragement…)

So in Genesis 1, we read of God creating the universe.  He creates the light, land, water, sun, moon, stars, and every time He creates them, we read that He saw it has good.  He stood back, looked at what He created, and said this is good.  He was pleased with what He saw.  But then in Genesis 2:18, we read this…

¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.”

The first thing the Lord saw as not good, was that man was alone.  And so the Lord in His goodness and grace to man, creates woman.  A helper that corresponds to and comes alongside man.  Starting in verse 19.

¹⁹ The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him. 

So all these animals are not alone.  They have each other, male and female, but there was no companion for man.

²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. ²² Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³ And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man.

At last, the man is not alone, and the Lord has given a woman to the man.  And as a result, the man and woman have been called to be joined for life in friendship, love, and marriage.  Verse 24 and 25…

²⁴ This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵ Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.

Marriage is not a man-made thing, but it is God’s design.  And God has called men to be active in our pursuit and love of a Godly wife.

Who you worship in this life is the most significant choice you will make.  It not only affects your eternal destiny, but your life here on this earth, and the lives of those around you.

Who you pursue as a wife, is the second most significant choice you will make.  Your jobs and where you live, will change over your life.  But the Lord has called us men, to pursue, care for, and love one woman for life.  What we read of in Genesis 2 is that it is not good for man to be alone, and the Lord created woman as a gracious gift to us.

The longer I am married to my wife, the more I grow in my gratitude for her and how the Lord brought her into my life.  A godly wife is a gift from the Father above.  A gift to sacrificially and selflessly love in the way of Christ.