It has been a week since I have had a post so I thought I would get in gear. I have been watching some basketball games of the local High School here. The girls team is ranked numbers in the state for 3a ball and they are undefeated they have a good club I hope they do well. Well anyways I am not going write about basketball but continue my series from the book Why Guys Need God by Mike Erre. Today I want to share a couple of quotes from chapter 10 and talk about them a little bit.
When we come out of hiding in front of each other, relationship will take hard work and lots of grace. The church gets lots of criticism because of its imperfections.
So many times we hide who we really are. Sometimes it is like we have to put on some sort of facade so people do not see the real us. I am not sure what drives this perhaps it is fear of people seeing the real us or fear that we are not good enough. Rarely do we tell people our real struggles or the things that are keeping us from being all we want to be in Christ or all we can be in Christ. The truth is if we really do be ourselves then in fact it will take alot of hard work and lots of grace. Grace to forgive others even when we really do not want to and grace to ask for forgiveness even when we do not want to. But if we continue to pretend to be someone we are not then the church is just a place where we go to be fake. The church definitley is not perfect and we are indeed a bunch of reformed sinners going thorug the process of sanctification yet many times we act like we have already been fully sanctified and that we have no problems whatsoever.
I often wonder what would church be like if people were real. What if a man walked into Sunday school and said I am struggling with pornography and I need help, or what if a woman walked in and said I struggle with gossiping I need help, or how about I have bitterness in my heart I need help. The church is supposed to be a community loving each other and holding each other accountable but I am afraid we have become a community where everything is based on only what we want people to perceive us to be and not who we really are. We don’t want people to know our secret sins what will is take for us to stop being superficial and just be honest. It is so hard. Here us the second quote.
Most churches teach men how to pretend behind religious fig leaves. We learn to act in the right religious ways, look the right religious ways, sing the right religious ways, and so on. We usually are not encouraged to actually share how things really are. So even though we need to connect with other guys at a really deep level, the church actually often hinders this process.
Prayer isn’t a place to be good; it is a place to be honest.
I already spoke about this above. I do not think this is a problem for just men either. I think often we go to church to pretend. Pretend to be someone we are not and we rarely go just to be honest and admit our struggles.
Today I want to talk about what I got out of chapter 9 of Mike Erre’s book why guys need God. THis paragraph from page 120 hit me pretty hard.
I can’t be grateful unless I see myself as small, dependant, and undeserving.
Today I am going to continue from my series of posts from the book Why Guys Need God by Mike Erre. I am going to discuss something out of chapter 3 which is titled Naming The Animals. Here it is
Even the American ideal of retirement reflects a self-interested, materialistic bias. The Bible never encourages a stage of life where we are independent enough to simply do what we want to do. Many men do use retirement as an opportunity to given and serve. But more often than not, retirement becomes and excuse for indulgence. Maybe we think we’ve earned the right to do absolutely nothing because we’ve worked for years at a job we’ve hated. Or maybe we just want to try new things. Either way, if we focus exclusively on our pursuits and ourselves, something starts to die within us. This is the stage of life when the community around us needs us the most. The younger generations need those at this stage to be active, more involved, and more willing to serve as spiritual mentors and fathers.
I am not sure why our mentality is often skewed when it comes to retirement. I know for the longest time I looked at retirement as a time to just sit back and relax and spend the day doing what I wanted on my terms how selfish is that. I believe in many churches across america that spiritual mentors need to rise up. I have seen this personally in some peoples lives. They did not decide just to disappear into retirement but have decided to give themselves in service to the king. When I grow older and approach my retirement years I do not want to have the idea that I am somehow done that my life is not complete. I pray that God will give me the strength and energy to keep on influencing others for Him.
There was one man that effected my life probably more then he will ever know and that man was retired but he stayed faithful serving the Lord. He was one of the most humble individuals I had ever met and to sit back and watch his energy and vigor for the Lord impacted me profoundly. I often remember hearing him preach the word and saying to myself when I am that age I pray I have the same vigor he has. I pray that by God’s grace one day when I hit that age of retirement that I will influence someone as much as he influenced me.