Of -Note Being a Man’s Man for God – Lachlan Laing

There are lots of very confusing things around these days. What with “political correctness”, S.N.A.G.ism, and then there are the gender agendas, to name a few…

Being a bloke is not an easy thing. We should be aware all these things. I was talking with a friend yesterday over coffee. Even that doesn’t sound that manly, does it!? Anyway, we got talking about the increasing feminisation of the church!

Now there is a scripture in Galatians which says, Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love [Galatians 5:2-6].

Now many in Galatia worshiped a hideous god (Cybele), and the highest act of worship for a bloke was to emasculate himself! They literally cut off all their reproductive organs!

The context of what Paul is saying here has real meaning to his readers for sure! He is saying, if you don’t stand up to these false teachers, you are effectively emasculating yourself.

So what does this mean? For us, today? What is it the church is called for? What are we really meant to be doing?

We can rightly apply it to winning the lost - or being productive, or reproductive, if you like.

If we look at it, our maleness has to do with reproductive-ness If we feminize the church we are taking away the very thing we are called to. “Be fruitful and multiply”!

Have you noticed over the last 20 years or so,

• Families are generally much smaller?
• Women have a greater say in things? This is not anti women some of what they bring is very good.

Like so many things in church life we take something and replace what was there instead of what I believe was God’s true intention. Which is that we add to what He is doing

After my coffee, I was driving home, and I often take time to pray and think about things in the car when no one is with me.

In Old Testament times the males had many wives! This is something I have often wondered about - until yesterday. It struck me that males contain the “channel” of reproduction. Women have the babies, yes. Women do the nurturing; women do the running of the home-type of things. But, it’s men who contain the “seed” capacity to grow, multiply their kind.

In those times they had huge families; David was the 8^th son; Solomon was the 6^th son - not to mention daughters!

Today there has been a change in society large families are no longer the norm. In many cases it is the non-white Australians that are having large families. It is not unusual for Islanders and Arab families to have 5+ kids while we typically have 2 or 3.

Yes I have had more so I can claim a little of this reproductive thing! But, as a member of God’s church, what am I saying? Just this - our enemy is not happy with us being Christians, but he especially doesn’t want us to be involved in reaching anyone else…

It is us males who should take the lead in these things; often it is left to the females to do these things in the Church. If we males keep abdicating our responsibility, where will the church be in the next generation?

Men, it is time to stand up and take it up to the enemy; get on our knees and fight this fight in the Name of Him who shed His blood for us.

We can embrace change but I believe what is truly necessary is not change but addition. We need to make room for more revelation on these things.

Some of what is coming this not good; we need to discern what is good, and what is not good.

The not good is a trap that we don’t want to fall in.

In1 Samuel 1 is the story of a Hannah who got angry for her situation and did what we all should do with our anger… She focused on the one who could do something about her situation. She went into God’s presence to seek Him about her barrenness. He heard her prayer, and she was given Samuel (He rescued Israel from the enemy and led the people for many years, taking them into a new era!)

What are we going to do?