The Resolution for Men

  Peter was very sincere—just like we can be—when he resolved to be faithful to Jesus. But he was relying on his own strength. Even though acting with great zeal and passion, his pride was mixed into his mind-set, and it set him up for great failure.

  The same thing will happen to us . . . unless we humble ourselves and become reliant on God’s grace and His Spirit. We must go back to what Jesus said at the very beginning—to the very first words of His very first sermon in the very first gospel.

  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

  Becoming “poor in spirit” is a key to living the Christian life daily and fulfilling this Resolution long-term. There are many types of poor people. Some wake up needy each morning and have to go out finding work—day laborers—living from hand to mouth in order to survive. Today’s work buys tonight’s meal. But there is an even more impoverished type of poor—the blind beggar who wakes up hungry every day but cannot work at all. The only thing he can do to survive is to cry out for help. Continually.

  This is the type of “poor” that Jesus was describing. But He was speaking of “spiritual poverty,” the kind that comes from realizing we are completely powerless apart from God’s constant intervention. Helpless on our own.

  That’s what being “poor in spirit” is all about. It’s knowing we can’t do anything of eternal value without God’s constant help. It’s relying completely on Him and begging continually to survive—the extreme opposite of pride and self-reliance.

  Think of it. Who was the most powerful, successful, and effective person in the history of the world? Who was the only person who never failed or blew it spiritually? Who was the only one who did the perfect will of God all the time? Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

  And how did He choose to live?

  “Poor in spirit.”

  Constantly, completely reliant upon His Father.

  Consider His spiritual poverty. Though He was God, He chose to empty Himself, take on human flesh, and humble Himself as a servant on earth. Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and became absolutely dependent upon the Father for all things at all times (Philippians 2:5–10).

  He then said . . .

  Not My will, but His will. (John 6:38)

  Not My teaching, but His teaching. (John 7:16–17)

  Not My glory, but His glory. (John 8:49–50; 12:28)

  Not My words, but His words. (John 14:10–24)

  He modeled the secret to long-term victory—total surrender of self, total reliance on God. We too, like a hospital patient plugged up to a life support system, must stay intimately connected to Christ and dependent on our heavenly Father and His Spirit for all our spiritual strength, wisdom, guidance, and grace.

  The decisions of our lives each day could impact eternity one way or another. We will miss the eternity-wrapped moment of “now” if we are not abiding in Christ. Our selfish nature wants to stay in control and resists reliance on God’s Spirit. Our tendency is only to cry out in a crisis when all else fails and we have no other options.

  But true power and sufficiency in Christ begins with recognizing our bankruptcy within ourselves. Paul said it is “not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

  This does not mean false humility or cowardice; it is merely facing reality. This does not mean laziness. God doesn’t want you to sit back and coast like He is going to do everything for you. He wants you to call on His name, rely on the strength of His grace, and then wear yourself out six days a week for a worthy cause—Him (1 Corinthians 15:10).

  But before you can say, “I can do all things through Christ” (Philippians 4:13), you must acknowledge that “apart from Him I can do nothing” (John 15:5). Then you must learn to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), which means that you are constantly going to God for the grace and wisdom you need to be like Jesus and do His will moment by moment throughout each day.

  “Help Me, Lord”

  We began this Resolution journey challenging you to take back the steering wheel—to reclaim responsibility for yourself, your wife, and your children. But God never intended for you to carry the weight of that challenge alone. He fully intends to carry you as you carry your family.

  He knows you can’t keep His commands. You can’t love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. You can’t really love your neighbor as yourself. You can’t love your wife with a Christlike love or train up your children to be mighty on the earth. You will break all ten of the Ten Commandments, either in action or in your heart, if left to fend for yourself.

  So He calls you to surrender yourself to Him, allowing Him to control you as you carry out your responsibilities. His Spirit constantly puts the hand of God’s power into the glove of your empty, submitted life, making you a channel of His truth, love, and grace rather than leaving you to figure out how to be your own source of strength.

  But none of this happens until you finally surrender to His lordship.

  The word Lord in the New Testament means “supreme master,” the one who is really in control. If Jesus is our Lord, then He is the boss who is ultimately in charge. He’s the one who makes the decisions. Lordship is when “What does the Lord want?” trumps, “What do I want?”

  But coming to this type of commitment is a spiritual journey. You start by believing God exists and realizing that He is who He says He is. Then your belief transitions to faith and trust, placing your life in His hands and following His lead.

  But He wants more. He doesn’t just want followers. He wants us to surrender ourselves totally to His lordship. Many followed Jesus but then turned away over time when things got tough.

  Jesus wants us to give Him all that we are and all that we have for all of our lives. He is not a halfhearted God who is pleased with a halfhearted sacrifice. He wants total, lifelong surrender from you. This is a picture of what true lordship looks like—when there is nothing He could tell you to do that you would say no to. Otherwise He is not your Lord.

  But when a man surrenders to the lordship of Christ, God takes him on a journey that tests him and teaches him, calling him to make Christ the Lord over his relationships, his finances, his possessions, his time, his thoughts, his hopes, his everything. Each individual layer that makes up his life becomes the next thing for Christ to control and transform into something of value, beauty, and lasting significance.

  Abraham, patriarch of the Old Testament, at first only believed that God existed. But then he was called out to trust Him by faith. Abraham obeyed with childlike belief and launched out, not knowing where he was even going. That was the first step. A big one. But along the way, you can see Abraham learning to trust God with his future, his worship, his wife, his money, and then ultimately his most prized possession: his beloved son Isaac. By the time Abraham surrendered Isaac to God, the Lord knew that Abraham was holding nothing back from Him. God had all of him. Now He could mightily use Him and make him a father of a great nation.

  What a legacy! Our future legacy depends on our decisions now.

  With Abandon

  Jesus is also calling us to hold nothing back. As large crowds began to follow Jesus, He turned to them and boldly said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).

  What a shocking statement. What did He mean—“hate” your family?

  The word hate here means He wants us to love something so much less by comparison (Matthew 10:37). It’s not that Jesus wants you to literally hate your family, obviously. We know His main command is to love God, love your neighbors, even love your enemies. But our love for Him must be so complete that the deep love we feel for our family would look like hate if stacked side-by-side with it.

  That’s extreme. But it’s exactly right.

  The bottom line is that Jes
us must be Lord over all of your relationships (Luke 14:26), your possessions (Luke 14:33), and yourself (Luke 14:27). Over everything. He must become the One you are most loyal to. Your most intimate Friend. Because when He is, something amazing happens—something only God could do. Your love for your spouse, your children, and others actually increases. He starts loving your family through you, far more completely than you could do on your own. When He is Lord, your time, talents, and possessions quit possessing you but start being utilized for God’s glory rather than being wasted. He makes you the man of resolution He knows you can only be by living through you.

  You may be thinking, “That sure is a lot to ask. It sounds like I’d be giving up everything. I’d be losing my life to do what He’s asking of me.” Yes, that’s the whole point! Your life in your hands will only become more and more sinful, eventually burning up like wood, hay, and stubble (1 Corinthians 3:12). But by losing your life in Christ, your life becomes eternally valuable. Jesus said, “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). God gave you your life as a trust so you would have something to offer back to Him. Completely. All that you are and all that you have.

  This is what lordship looks like. And it is what takes us to a new level.

  Consider these seven reasons why you should go beyond belief, beyond merely following Jesus, and wholeheartedly surrender to His lordship:

  1. He already owns you. The only way to own something is to create it, buy it, or have it given to you. Jesus, our Creator, knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). He made you. But not only that, He has bought you “with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20) by shedding His own blood and redeeming you back to God after sin had separated you. His desire is now to own you in every way a person can be owned—by having you give yourself fully to Him.

  2. You owe Him a debt of love. The greatest love ever demonstrated toward you was not your mom birthing you or your wife marrying you, but rather from Jesus Christ. He has loved you by giving you life, breath, food, and shelter, but most of all by looking down on your sin and dying in your place. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). He paid the greatest sacrifice to meet your greatest need when you deserved it the least. One who would do that is worthy of your life.

  3. You can’t handle life on your own. The Bible describes us as sheep that have gone astray; “each of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). None of us is righteous, “not even one; there is none who understands . . . all have turned aside, together they have become useless” (Romans 3:10–12). Every one of our sins proves that we need His help to make right decisions. Christ must be at the helm of our lives or we are a spiritual train wreck waiting to happen.

  4. He can make you happier than you can make yourself. By chasing sinful pleasures, we’re actually hungering for love, joy, and peace. But these are the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of our sins. When we put ourselves first and pursue our happiness, we end up missing God and not being happy either. But when we lose ourselves in the pursuit of loving and pleasing God, then we not only get an intimate relationship with God, but He gives us happiness as gravy on the side. “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)

  5. He has your entire life already planned out. David wrote, “Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed” (Psalm 139:16 NLT). And here’s why: “For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11). “Eye has not seen and ear has not heard . . . all that God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). His plans for your life are better than anything you could come up with in a million years. Why not surrender to them?

  6. You will be judged by Him one day. Though our sins have been forgiven by the pure, perfect sacrifice of Christ—though we are saved by grace, through faith—“we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, ‘every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.’ So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:10–12). We should never let a day pass that we do not feel solemnly charged “in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead” (1 Timothy 4:1). Why not let the Judge Himself rule our lives now to prepare us for that great day?

  7. He deserves you. Only Jesus Christ humbled Himself, lived a sinless life, and then took our place on the cross at great sacrifice. The Bible says of Him, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). Only Jesus could rightfully say, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). We don’t bow to Him merely because He is asking but because He has earned our allegiance.

  So with these seven things in mind, you must ask yourself if there is any reason why you will not surrender all that you are and all that you have to the lordship of Jesus Christ?

  Yes, people will misunderstand you for doing this. They will mock and marginalize you. They may even attack and persecute you for the name of Christ. But that won’t matter—because it’s not about you. Your life is not yours anymore. If you are Christ’s, you are hidden in God.

  You represent your Lord, not yourself. If they reject you because they have rejected Him, then you don’t have to take it personally. Jesus said to “rejoice” if that happens. Celebrate it because “great is your reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:12 NIV).

  So whether anybody else supports you or not, surrender your life completely to Him!

  You can stay true to this Resolution by staying poor in spirit and surrendered to Him, by turning loose and letting Him do it. He’ll make you a man who lives seven days a week for the glory of God—not because you can, but because He can.

  Life has always been, still is today, and always will be all about Him. It has never been about us. But we should revel in the awesome privilege of aiming all our passions and the rest of our days at living to bring Him honor. The finale of all things is the glory of God. We don’t undertake this Resolution so we can brag about our spiritual “awesomeness” or maturity. The goal of being found faithful to our calling is not to be able to show off but to show Him off. To make Him famous!

  The Bible says, “The eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chronicles 16:9). And God’s eyes are looking across the earth at this very hour, looking for men who will surrender their all to the One who paid it all—men He will strongly support to step up with courage to be a powerful light and an influential force in our generation.

  We need a new generation of men like young David, who will say, “I’m not afraid of the Goliaths in this world who are trying to intimidate us into backing down and staying in the corner. I’m standing firm in the name of the Lord knowing that the battle belongs to the Lord!”

  We need an army of men like Nehemiah who will see the desperate needs of the nation and call the men of God to rise up and fight for their marriages, their children, and the next generation. Men who will not only fight injustice and rail against the status quo, but will actively rebuild our families, our churches, and our nations for the glory of God.

  We need bold men like Job who, even if we were stripped of our friends, our money, our health, and all the things dear to us, would still say, “The LORD gives and the LORD takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I will not curse God or let go of my integrity. For I know that my Redeemer lives!”

  We need selfless men like the apostle Paul, who after making countless mistakes against God, surrendered his life to Christ and lived the rest of his days courageously dependent on God’s grace. Men who when beaten and persecuted, cling to God with powerful fait
h and endurance. Men who when the church needs leadership, say, “Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1 NIV). Men who will not love their lives unto death but fearlessly look at the future and say, “For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain!” Men who with their final breaths can say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:7–8).

  And most of all, we need a new generation of men like Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who say to God, “Not my will, but Yours be done!” And at the end of their lives say, “Father, I glorified You on the earth and I have completed the work You gave me to do.”

  By God’s grace, we can each become that kind of man.

  A faithful man of resolution.

  Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20–21)

  Yes, Lord. Amen!

  COURAGEOUS CHALLENGE

  Commit alone or with a group of others to be a man of Resolution. Sign your own Resolution print during a special ceremony with your family. (Professionally produced prints are available at courageousresources.com or dayspring.com.)

  MEMORY VERSE

  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58 NKJV)