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Act Like Men: A Titanic Lesson in Manliness
by Dave Brown, WACMM Director and Pastor

Churches cannot thrive if there’s not a solid core of men leading them who are Gospel-driven followers of Christ.  

When men are absent, lackadaisical or weak when it comes to God and the things of God, churches atrophy and eventually die. If men become ensnared in therapeutic moralism now rampant in many churches, they will become self-focused rather than living sacrificially for the sake of others. And churches will atrophy and die.

Among the many distinguishing characteristics of men who live out of their God-assigned roles and responsibilities are boldness and courage. Godly men - men of true valor - are supposed to fight for their families, the gospel, for the weak, innocent and vulnerable who are being threatened or oppressed by evil and danger.

100 years ago - April 14th, 1912 - the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg with 2,223 people on board. In the midst of that disaster, courageous men sprang into action to ensure that women and children would be saved. Today authentic manhood seems to be sinking. This is one of the most significant issues of our time.Interestingly it is being seen as such by more and more secular analysts and academics but not by most churches. Check out this trailer of a new film called Act Like Men - HERE

Fake Love, Fake War: Why So Many Men Are Addicted to Internet Porn and Video Games
by Justin Taylor (a summary of an article by Russell Moore - link below)

The new ebook The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It is a secular argument by psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan that “an addiction to video games and online porn have created a generation of shy, socially awkward, emotionally removed, and risk-adverse young men who are unable (and unwilling) to navigate the complexities and risks inherent to real-life relationships, school, and employment.”

Russell Moore explores this from a Christian perspective [highlights]

But porn and video games both are built on novelty, on the quest for newer and different experiences. That’s why you rarely find a man addicted to a single pornographic image. He’s entrapped in an ever-expanding kaleidoscope.

There’s a key difference between porn and gaming.

Pornography can’t be consumed in moderation because it is, by definition, immoral.

A video game can be a harmless diversion along the lines of a low-stakes athletic competition. But the compulsive form of gaming shares a key element with porn: both are meant to simulate something, something for which men long.

Pornography promises orgasm without intimacy.

Video warfare promises adrenaline without danger.

The arousal that makes these so attractive is ultimately spiritual to the core.

He goes on to look at Satan’s strategy as upending God’s original intention:

Satan isn’t a creator but a plagiarist. His power is parasitic, latching on to good impulses and directing them toward his own purpose.

God intends a man to feel the wildness of sexuality, in the self-giving union with his wife.

And a man is meant to, when necessary, fight for his family, his people, for the weak and vulnerable who are being oppressed.

The drive to the ecstasy of just love and to the valor of just war are gospel matters.

The sexual union pictures the cosmic mystery of the union of Christ and his church.

The call to fight is grounded in a God who protects his people, a Shepherd Christ who grabs his sheep from the jaws of the wolves.

He also looks at the ways in which these addictions “foster the seemingly opposite vices of passivity and hyper-aggression.”

The porn addict becomes a lecherous loser, with one-flesh union supplanted by masturbatory isolation. 

The video game addict becomes a pugilistic coward, with other-protecting courage supplanted by aggression with no chance of losing one’s life.

In both cases, one seeks the sensation of being a real lover or a real fighter, but venting one’s reproductive or adrenal glands over pixilated images, not flesh and blood for which one is responsible.

Read Russ Moore's entire article HERE

Unashamed Masculinity from a Woman's Perspective

by Gloria Furman - May 18, 2012

(Gloria Furman lives in Dubai with her husband Dave, a pastor. They are raising three young kids. Gloria is currently writing a book for Crossway on applying the gospel in the home)

I live in a culture that admires a man’s earning power, and his fertility, and his ability to rule his domain with an iron fist.

While Scripture certainly calls for a Christ-like masculinity that provides for and protects his family, the Bible takes a wrecking ball to the culture-based ideals of masculinity that are celebrated around the world.

By God’s grace, I enjoy the fruits of living with a man who demonstrates biblical masculinity. This is the kind of masculinity that emerges from the gospel, points back to the gospel, and celebrates the gospel in my home.

Unashamed

The masculinity I appreciate as a wife is of far greater value than wealth-earning power. It’s a masculinity that is unashamed of the gospel which is the power of God (Romans 1:16).

The unashamed masculinity I enjoy in my home leaves a legacy that is more enduring than prolific fertility. It’s masculinity that fervently loves others from a heart that has been born again, born not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable. True masculinity is reborn through the living and abiding word of God.

The unashamed masculinity I love to follow in my home is far more impressive than macho pride. It’s masculinity that is willing to take the painful shrapnel in the battle against his own sin, rather than run from sin and hide in the comfort of silence. It is a masculinity that willingly exposes its life to the iron-sharpening-iron of open and honest male accountability relationships.

The unashamed masculinity that guards the hearts in my home puts away rash, cutting words that pierce like a sword. My husband’s Christ-honoring masculinity understands the power of words, and he uses words to bring healing to me and our children.

The unashamed masculinity I cherish in my home is such that fixes its eyes on Jesus and turns its eyes away from all the vain things of this world that hold a potent charm over other men. My husband’s Christ-honoring masculinity flees from promises whispered by a hiss.

The unashamed masculinity I need in my home is concerned that others find their delight in God. Nothing quite says, “I love you” to me than when my husband is willing to humbly stand up to the things I pursue that obstruct my everlasting joy in God. His loving masculinity reassures me of Christ’s atonement made on my behalf, and of the privilege I have to boldly approach the throne of grace.

Unashamed masculinity has less to do with how many horses a man owns, or how fast he can run. Unashamed masculinity is about what a man does with the gospel.

Where can you see this unashamed masculinity? You see it whenever a man has peered into the empty tomb and found new motivation to lay down his own life to spread the gospel into the souqs of Casablanca, into the office spaces in Dallas, into the cafes in Geneva, into the shantytowns of Mumbai, into the barrios of Sao Paulo, and into the universities of Toronto.

My Unashamed Husband

My dear, godly, husband once explained to someone that he wasn’t able to shake hands because of the nerve disease in his arms. This person said, “That’s awful! Everyone can tell a real man by the firm grip of his handshake.”

I just smiled to myself.

I’ve watched my husband find his strength in the joy of the Lord. He has a firm grip on grace. And I can testify that he is “a real man” by his unashamed passion for the gospel.

When he cares for our family, our church, and our city with the gospel, he grabs hold of the gates of hell and shakes them without fear and without shame.

That is the kind of gospel-centered masculinity that I thank God for, and it’s the masculinity that I want to celebrate.

Horton, Wilson, Burk Spar Over Whether Cultural Expectations Should Shape Christian Views of Masculinity

Is Christianity masculine? Has ministry become effeminate? The consideration of such questions by leaders in the Reformed movement (for example, John Piper recently said that Christianity has a ("masculine feel") has initiated a debate about whether the modern resurgence of "muscular Christianity" is scriptural and, more generally, whether cultural expectations should shape Christian views of manhood.

Position #1 - In an article for Modern Reformation titled "Muscular Christianity," Michael Horton, a professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary, argues that "In the drive to make churches more guy-friendly, we risk confusing cultural (especially American) customs with biblical discipleship":

The back story on all of this is the rise of the "masculine Christianity movement" in Victorian England, especially with Charles Kingsley's fictional stories in Two Years Ago (1857). D. L. Moody popularized the movement in the United States and baseball-player-turned-evangelist Billy Sunday preached it as he pretended to hit a home run against the devil. For those of us raised on testimonies from recently converted football players in youth group, Tim Tebow is hardly a new phenomenon. Reacting against the safe deity, John Eldredge's Wild at Heart (2001) offered a God who is wild and unpredictable. Neither image is grounded adequately in Scripture. With good intentions, the Promise Keepers movement apparently did not have a significant lasting impact. Nor, I predict, will the call of New Calvinists to a Jesus with "callused hands and big biceps," "the Ultimate Fighting Jesus."

Are these really the images we have of men in the Scriptures? Furthermore, are these the characteristics that the New Testament highlights as "the fruit of the Spirit"---which, apparently, is not gender-specific? "Gentleness, meekness, self-control," "growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ," "submitting to your leaders," and the like? Officers are to be "apt to teach," "preaching the truth in love," not quenching a bruised reed or putting out a smoldering candle, and the like. There is nothing about beating people up or belonging to a biker club.

Position #2 -- In his reply (Michael Horton, Gender Stereotypes, and Me), Doug Wilson, pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho and Senior Fellow at New Saint Andrews College, says that Horton's critique appears to rest on a confusion about the role of what gender stereotypes from our culture means since creational differences are expressed in a cultural context:

Suppose you overheard one of the kids from your church telling one of the sweet little church ladies to "eff off." Suppose you confronted him about it, and he defended himself by saying that the meaning assigned to those particular sounds were assigned by our culture, and not by the Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture. Suppose further that he scoffs and says that the whole thing is "linguistically arbitrary." And, you know, he's right, and I suppose you also know that he is entirely and completely in the wrong. It is linguistically arbitary, and he still doesn't get to speak that way.

The Bible never tells us that men should take out the garbage, or that a gentleman holds a seat for the lady, or that opening a car door for your wife is a class act, and so on. Never. But that is irrelevant. Our culture gives us the vocabulary of honor, but the Bible tells us how we must do something with that vocabulary.

Scoring the Debate: Horton makes an excellent point that some Evangelicals---especially those within the "Young, Restless, and Reformed" camp---have created an unscriptural vision of masculinity that is built on "a Jesus with 'callused hands and big biceps,' 'the Ultimate Fighting Jesus.'" In an attempt to make church more appealing to men, some evangelicals churches have even promoted questionable "ministries" which focus on violent sports such as Mixed Martial Arts. These types of activities pervert the view of Biblical masculinity. As Horton correctly notes, the fruits of the Spirit are not gender-specific and are often antithetical to the popular hyper-masculine view of how Christian men should act.

Yet while this is a helpful and much needed corrective, I believe that Wilson is right to point out how Horton has gone too far in separating scriptural admonitions from their cultural context. My own view is best expressed by Denny Burk, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, who says:

In 1 Corinthians 11, the apostle Paul argues for male headship (1 Cor. 11:3), and he does so on the basis of the order of God's good creation (1 Cor. 11:8-9). Yet in the midst of laying down this creation norm, Paul also references a number of particular issues that are conditioned by cultural considerations. The one that immediately comes to mind is the bit about hair length.

The passage overall is concerned with men and women inhabiting their proper roles, and a part of that means looking the part. Men should look like men, and women should look like women. And so Paul says, "Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her?" (1 Cor. 11:14-15).

So here is an instance in which the apostle Paul himself says that God-ordained gender roles must be lived-out with an eye toward cultural expectations of masculinity and femininity.
There are other texts that we could go to that illustrate this same principle (e.g., Deut. 22:5), but let's leave it at just the one for now. The point is that we have to live out our gender roles in the culture that we find ourselves in. The apostle Paul probably never wore trousers. But that doesn't mean that he was less masculine for wearing something that would probably have looked more like a dress to us. His own culture informed the way he obeyed God, even though the creation norm remained an ever-fixed mark. He had an eye to his culture's impressions about masculinity and femininity. I don't think we can do any different.

by Joe Carter is a Marine Corps veteran, an editor for The Gospel Coalition and the co-author of How to Argue Like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History's Greatest Communicator.

Gospel Men

Gospel Men

I see four ways masculinity is expressed by Christian men today; three wrong, one right.

1. Soft exterior, soft interior. Effeminate inside and out, top to bottom. Yuck.

2. Hard exterior, soft interior. Posers. Macho. Insecure, covering it with how much they can bench.

3. Hard exterior, hard interior. Genuinely strong, willing to lay down their life for Jesus and family, but earnest to make sure everyone knows that about them. Not only wants to be strong in actuality but needs to be strong in image. Stiff not only in conviction but in demeanor.

4. Soft exterior, hard interior. Rock solid, responsible, risk-taking, calls heresy heresy, calls error error, willing to take shots for the good of the team, able to stick his neck out in elder meetings when the pastor is being maligned by fellow-elder-golfing-buddies--but all soaked in a gentle demeanor, seasoned with grace, someone the guy struggling with homosexuality would confide in.

The answer to the first two is not the third but the fourth.

Paul said 'Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men' (1 Cor 16:13) and he said repeatedly to do all things with gentleness (Gal 5:23; Eph 4:2; 2 Tim 2:25). I think in the past I've received the first thing to the neglect of the second.

A mature oak tree is immovable when the storms rage against it, but it's also beautiful, and invites shelter to others. Isn't that what gospel men should be?

By Dane Ortland, Bible Publishing Director at Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois.

Chronological Snobbery and the Spirit of Our Age

The other day I recalled a statement by C. S. Lewis back in the early 1950s. He was asked by Decision magazine whether he was concerned about the “de-Christianizing” of the West, especially Europe. Lewis replied, “I’m not really qualified to speak to the question of the culture, but there is definitely a de-Christianizing of the church.” 

Lewis' observation is even more telling and concerning today as much cultural faddishness not just creeps, but freely gallops, into churches and into men's ministries.

I am blessed to belong to a church that would seem to the culture to be hundreds of years behind the times and amazingly indifferent to popular fashion. On the other hand,  it would seem to me to be a horrifying thing to belong to a church that feels itself nano seconds behind the times, huffing and puffing to catch up to the cultural climate.

J. I. Packer in Surprised by Joy describes the heretical spirit of our age, which holds that:

• the newer is the truer,

• only what is recent is decent,

• every shift of ground is a step forward,

• and every latest word must be hailed as the last word on its subject.

This is what C. S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery” (a lesson he learned from his friend Owen Barfield). Lewis defined it thus:

"the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited."

Lewis explained what’s wrong with this approach:

• You must find out why it went out of date.

• Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood.

• From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also ‘a period,’ and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also a "period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions.  They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.

Thanks to Justin Taylor - Two Worlds - for putting me onto this.

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It's Not About Sex

Our Hearts, Desperately Deceptive
By Rhett Dodson 

"It's not about sex." That's what the john said in his interview with Diane Sawyer. He had hired a prostitute for sex, but it wasn't about sex. For my part, I believe him.

When Sawyer was with ABC's 20/20, she did an exposé on "Prostitution in America: Working Girls Speak." It was one of the saddest television programs I've ever watched. I couldn't watch everything. (Remote controls are not sacramental, but I'm convinced they are a means of grace.) What I could watch told the heart-breaking stories of several young women trapped in "the world's oldest profession." Why would beautiful and intelligent young women throw away their lives this way? "Glamour" and "money brings happiness" were prominent answers. Promises of glamour and happiness---the Devil's counterfeits for holiness and joy---lured these young women into a lifestyle of emptiness and untimely death. Most prostitutes die by the age of 34.

Reflecting on the program, I first thought of Harvie Conn, who gave the early years of his ministry to serve as an Orthodox Presbyterian missionary to Korea. There he preached the gospel to prostitutes. It was a difficult and dangerous ministry. He angered pimps, but he rescued girls. Conn rescued them from abuse and early death; Jesus rescued them from sin and guilt. Souls were saved. Lives were rebuilt. Christ was glorified. "Lord, give us more, many more Harvie Conns."

I then thought about Augustine. It wasn't his immoral lifestyle (he lived with a woman prior to his conversion) that made me think of him; it was his theft of pears. As a teenager, Augustine had crept into an orchard under the cover of darkness and stolen some pears. Why? He confessed:

It was not the pears that my unhappy soul desired. I had plenty of my own, better than those, and I only picked them so that I might steal. For no sooner had I picked them than I threw them away, and tasted nothing in them but my own sin, which I relished and enjoyed. If any part of one of those pears passed my lips, it was the sin that gave it flavor (Confessions, 2.6).

Had Diane Sawyer interviewed Augustine, his face blurred on the television screen but clear to the eyes of God, he would have said, "It's not about pears."

Desperately Sick

So if it's not about sex and it's not about pears, what is it about? To answer this question we must consult Conn and Augustine's mentor, the apostle Paul, and Paul's mentor, the prophet Jeremiah. First, the prophet. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it" (Jer. 17:9)? When the john admitted that sex wasn't the ultimate reason he hired his companion, he also confessed that he didn't really know the reason. He could get sex. He had a girlfriend. He was afraid of losing her. He didn't want others to know what he had done. He didn't understand his own actions. Ignorance of motivation does not lessen his guilt, but it does reveal the depth of his deceitful and desperately sick heart, the sinful heart we all possess.

The apostle explains this doctrine of indwelling sin. "If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet.' But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness" (Rom. 7:7-8a). The law of God says, "Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not hire prostitutes. Thou shalt not steal pears." But the sin of idolatry lies deep in my heart. This sin deifies my supposed independence. I want to be God. I want to set my own rules for living and terms for happiness. Sin transforms God's holy "Thou shalt not" into my stubborn "I will."

Great Risk

Young women become prostitutes for many reasons. Most were abused as children. But the pursuit of glamour and the desire for money reveal the thrones where they worship. Men visit prostitutes for many reasons, known and unknown, but at the heart of them all lies the resolve to cast off God's law. Men take great risks when they hire prostitutes. They risk their health, possibly their lives, their families, their public offices. But they calculate it's worth the risk to be in charge. It's the very same reason boys risk climbing orchard fences to steal pears.

By God's grace I've never hired a prostitute, and I don't remember ever stealing pears, but I want to be God. The problem is that God consistently refuses to share his glory with me (Isa. 42:8).

So, Diane, it's not about sex, or pears, or money, or glamour, or happiness---it's about God. I, a man, want to be God. He, in his righteous jealousy, will not allow it. But in his gracious love, God became a man to rescue me from myself.

Rhett Dodson is the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Hudson, Ohio. He served as an associate pastor and seminary professor prior to coming to Grace in July 2010. He is also the author of two forthcoming books on the Psalms of Ascents entitled This Brief Journey and To Be a Pilgrim. Rhett and his wife, Theresa, make their home in Hudson.

22 Descriptions of Marital Love

"More couples than I can number have been surprised that their marriage needs the regular rescue of grace. And because they did not take the bible seriously, they were caught short in that moment, when the rubber meets the road in daily life, where grace was their only hope." So writes Paul Tripp in his excellent book What Did You Expect? Below are twenty-two descriptions of marital love from Tripp's book.  While the descriptions apply to both husbands and wives, we’ve written them specifically to us husbands:

1. Love is being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of your wife without impatience or anger.

2. Love is actively fighting the temptation to be critical and judgmental toward your wife, while looking for ways to encourage and praise.

3. Love is the daily commitment to resist the needless moments of conflict that come from pointing out and responding to minor offenses.

4. Love is being honest and approachable in times of misunderstanding, and being more committed to unity than you are to winning, accusing, or being right.

5. Love is a daily commitment to admit your sin, weakness, and failure and to resist the temptation to offer an excuse or shift the blame.

6. Love means being willing, when confronted by your wife, to examine your heart rather than rising to your defense or shifting the focus.

7. Love is a daily commitment to grow in love so that the love you offer to your wife is increasingly selfless, mature, and patient.

8. Love is being unwilling to do what is wrong when you have been wronged but to look for concrete and specific ways to overcome evil with good.

9. Love is being a good student of your wife, looking for her physical, emotional, and spiritual needs so that in some way you can remove the burden, support her as she carries it, or encourage her along the way.

10. Love means being willing to invest the time necessary to discuss, examine, and understand the problems that you face as a couple, staying on task until the problem is removed or you have agreed upon a strategy of response.

11. Love is always being willing to ask for forgiveness and being committed to grant forgiveness when it is requested.

12. Love is recognizing the high value of trust in a marriage and being faithful to your promises and true to your word.

13. Love is speaking kindly and gently, even in moments of disagreement, refusing to attack your spouse's character or assault his or her intelligence.

14. Love is being unwilling to flatter, lie, manipulate, or deceive in any way in order to co-opt your wife into giving you what you want or doing something your way.

15. Love is being unwilling to ask your wife to be the source of your identity, meaning and purpose, or inner sense of well-being, while refusing to be the source of hers.

16. Love is the willingness to have less free time, less sleep, and a busier schedule in order to be faithful to what God has called you to be and to do as a husband.

17. Love is a commitment to say no to selfish instincts and to do everything that is within your ability to promote real unity, functional understanding, and active love in your marriage.

18. Love is staying faithful to your commitment to treat your spouse with appreciation, respect, and grace, even in moments when he or she doesn't seem to deserve it or is unwilling to reciprocate.

19. Love is the willingness to make regular and costly sacrifices for the sake of your marriage without asking anything in return or using your sacrifices to place your wife in your debt.

20. Love is being unwilling to make any personal decision or choice that would harm your marriage, hurt your wife, or weaken the bond of trust between you.

21. Love is refusing to be self-focused or demanding but instead looking for specific ways to serve, support, and encourage, even when you are busy or tired.

22. Love is daily admitting to yourself, your wife, and God that you are not able to love this way without God's protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.

Thanks to R W Glenn for this compilation

Gospel Militancy

“Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?  Do I not loathe those who rise up against you?”  Psalm 139:21

Strong language.  And there is no ambiguity in the Hebrew.  Moreover, this militant spirit runs throughout the Bible.  In the New Testament, for example, Paul curses anyone who perverts the gospel (Galatians 1:8-9).  We cannot tear this thread from the biblical fabric without shredding the whole.  But how does this intensity fit into the gospel of loving one’s enemy?

One, gospel militancy is not personally spiteful.  David does not say, “Do I not hate those who hate me, O Lord?”  We know that David could humbly accept personal abuse without retaliating (2 Samuel 16:5-14).

Two, gospel militancy recognizes that Christ has real enemies.  “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?”  There are beasts and false prophets, as in the Revelation, both outside and inside the church.  Their hostility toward Christ is sometimes aimed at us.  But it’s still about Christ.

Three, gospel militancy is (1) required by love for Christ and (2) compatible with love for his enemies:

(1)  We must choose sides, clearly and openly, as David did.  There is nothing more tragic than a Christian man who is hard to read.  David had the guts to stand up for Christ, because he valued the Lord’s approval more than human approval.

(2)  We must both love and hate those who oppose Christ.  What we hate about them is their opposition to him.  What we love about them is his creation of them.  John L. McKenzie, in the American Ecclesiastical Review 111 (1944): 90, distinguished the odium inimicitiae from the odium abominationis.  The former is the psychology of personal malice.  It is sinful.  The latter is more complex.  It values and honors the divine creation of the other, while it disapproves of the perversities to which the divine creation is devoted.  It would be wrong not to disapprove.  But in this same complex sense, we both love and hate ourselves too.

Four, gospel militancy includes self-criticism.  Immediately after his outcry in verse 21, David also prays, “Search me, O God, and know my heart!” (Psalm 139:23).  David was as suspicious of nothing in the world as he was of himself.  He asked God to change him in any way God wanted.

Five, gospel militancy accepts suffering.  Loyalty to Christ is loyalty to a crucified Hero.  Standing boldly for Christ doesn’t mean we have to win; it just means standing, whatever the outcome.  Frederick William Faber:

Then learn to scorn the praise of men and learn to lose with God;

For Jesus won the world through shame, and beckons thee his road.

Six, gospel militancy is sustained by the final triumph of Christ.  Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, page 302: “The certainty of God’s just judgment at the end of history is the presupposition for the renunciation of violence in the middle of it.”

Christ is coming.  He will judge.  That is his prerogative alone.  Our part, moment by moment, is to maintain the strong but delicate complexities of gospel militancy until he comes, whatever the cost to us personally.

by Dr. Ray Ortlund is Lead Pastor of Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee

Ten Ways To Love a Woman

Note from author of this article Patrick Morley: This is an excerpt from my new book Man Alive. I wrote Man Alive because I'm tired of watching men go to events, get all amped up, charge out determined to do better, soar briefly, then glide (or crash) back to earth. In my experience these men are deeply frustrated that they can't sustain the change. It doesn't have to be that way. So what's going on? There are seven primal needs that, when met God's way, can stop the spiritual roller coaster. If you know a man like that, or if that's you, order a copy of Man Alive today and let me walk you through a process to become "alive through Christ" (Eph 2:4-5). Or start a small group to discuss the questions at the end of each chapter.

No need is more primal than to love and be loved without reservation. I've been married to Patsy for 39 years and I love her more today than the day we married. I mentioned this to a single female lab tech yesterday and she wanted to know the "secret." I told her several practical ideas, but at the end I said, "We're Christians and each of us have given Jesus the first place in our lives. When Christ is first, everything else just seems to fall into place." I watched as comprehension slowly spread across her face.

Here are the ten most practical marriage ideas I've picked up over four decades of working with men. Discuss these with your single men too!

1. Pray with Your Wife

Shaun from Bozeman, Montana, asked his men's group, "How many of you pray with your wives?" Only one of the eight men said that he did. They started holding each other accountable. Here's what Shaun said about it a year later:

The benefits when we are obedient in this area are amazing. Here are some comments from the men about what happens when they pray with their wives on a consistent basis:

·         "I feel a closeness to my wife that wasn't there before."

·         "Communication between us is better."

·         "The petty things are just not a big deal anymore."

And I'll tell you this, it's pretty hard to be upset with your wife or to be arguing and still come before God with a clean heart. It forces us to communicate and humble ourselves with each other before we do something as intimate as praying together. It just permeates through the rest of your family and day.

Ask your wife if you can take some time each day to pray together. Patsy and I always start the day with prayer for one to three minutes, and then we pray again when we're together for dinner.

2. Pray for Your Wife

Not long ago I wrote a book called The Marriage Prayer with David Delk. The book is titled after a very specific sixty-eight-word prayer that we believe captures the essence of what the Bible teaches on marriage.

One day, a few months after I had started praying the marriage prayer myself, I was settled into my favorite chair and deep into a book when I saw Patsy walking by with the trash. I literally leaped out of my chair and said, "Here, let me get that for you."

Immediately I stopped. What just happened here? I wondered, since I was pretty sure I had never done that before!

And then a phrase from the marriage prayer popped into my mind: "I want to hear her, cherish her, and serve her -- so she would love You more and we can bring You glory."

This prayer has also been transforming for other men. One man said he started putting his empty Splenda packets in the trash instead of leaving them on the counter. You have to start somewhere.

Here's the whole marriage prayer:

Father, I said, "Till death do us part"-- I want to mean it.

Help me to love You more than her,

and her more than anyone or anything else.

Help me bring her into Your presence today.

Make us one, like You are three-in-one.

I want to hear her, cherish her, and serve her --

So she would love You more and

we can bring You glory. Amen.

Think about this: you are likely the only person in the whole world who will remember to regularly pray for your mate. Tear out or copy this prayer, pray it every day for your wife, and watch God work. Learn more about the Marriage Prayer--including a version for a wife to pray--at www.themarriageprayer.com.

3. Spend Time with Her Alone

How we spend our time reveals what is really important to us. Successful couples spend time together. They develop shared interests, such as bowling, reading, hiking, Bible studies, board games, or walking around the neighborhood. Patsy and I have always kept a weekly date night as a top priority.

Early in our marriage, I started hanging out at the table after dinner for about twenty minutes just to be with Patsy. We've done this for decades. A few years ago I also started rubbing her feet with lotion as we talk. I can guarantee you who she'll say is her best friend!

4. Listen to Her Deeply Without Giving an Overly Quick Reply

Communication invariably shows up as the number one problem in marriage surveys. And the greatest weakness in communication with our mates is the problem of giving an overly quick reply. We attach high value to our mates when we listen sincerely and patiently to each other. Listening deeply requires that we don't respond too quickly, don't criticize, and don't give advice unless the other person asks for it. (Everyone dreads being "fixed.") Listening lubricates marriage and cuts down on friction.

5. Touch Her

Successful couples touch each other. They hug, squeeze, embrace, pat, hold hands, put their arms around each other, and sit close enough to touch when watching television. Nonsexual touching leads to genuine intimacy. Touching her is like recharging her battery.

6. Accept Her Unconditionally

Happy wives don't feel like they have to perform to be loved. They don't feel like they will be rejected if they don't meet a set of standards. For Pete's sake, if your wife has fat ankles, don't say something stupid like, "Why don't you do ankle exercises?" Jesus accepts each of us "just as I am," as the old hymn says, and smart mates accept each other as is too. Intimacy means that I know who you are at the deepest level and I accept you.

7. Encourage Her with Words

Your mate has an emotional bank account into which you make deposits and from which you make withdrawals. If you're grumpy when you get home from work, you are making a withdrawal from her account. When you encourage your spouse when she feels down, you are making a deposit. (Make sure to keep track of the account balance!)

We all need to be lifted up when we feel blue, but the most successful couples go one step further--they create a positive environment. They verbally affirm each other at every opportunity. They try to catch each other doing things right. They pass along compliments others make about their mate. They never pass up an opportunity to express appreciation: "I love the way you fix your hair." "That was a great dinner." "I love having you for my wife." "Thank you for running such a smooth home."

Encouragement is the food of the heart, and every heart is a hungry heart.

8. Take Care of Her Financially

Money problems create more stress on a marriage than any other outside threat. Here is the money issue in a nutshell: is it right to spend so much on a lifestyle today that your wife would be forced into panic mode if you were not around anymore? Successful couples have resolved to live within their means. They do not live so high today that they fail to provide for retirement and premature death.

9. Laugh with Her

The antidote to boredom in marriage is lively humor. If your partner says something even remotely funny, laugh! Keep track of what brings a smile to her face and what makes her laugh 'til her sides hurt. If neither one of you is funny, watch funny movies and make some funny friends.

10. After God but Before All Others, Make Your Wife Your Top Priority

Once I called three friends to pray for a difficult challenge I faced the next day. One week later I called each of them to let them know how it turned out. "Oh yeah," every one of them said, "I've been meaning to call you."

Sure.

Men, you and your wife are the only two people who are really in this thing together. Everyone else will phase in and out of your lives -- even your children. One day soon the party will be over and all your golfing buddies will have moved to Florida to live in little condominium pods and drive around on streets made for golf carts. And there will be only two rocking chairs sitting side by side. One for you, and one for her.

Doesn't it make sense to invest today in the person who will be sitting next to you then? Be your wife's best friend.