What truth are we choosing to stand firm on? For what cause do we pour out our service and precious time?
I’ve started a new adventure and I’m about 12,000 words in. This will be my first book, and like any first thing I’m sure I’ll learn a lot while doing it. Then I’ll learn how to do it better later.
I’ve had some assistance along the way. I started with an idea and an inspirational source, then I had a professional writer help me get started with organizing my thoughts in words and placement. Then I took it from there.
I found a graphics design resource to build out the book cover and they did a fantastic job putting my articulated words into a visual eye catcher.
I’m currently having a couple more men review the current version of the book to give feedback. Of course, I’ve already had my dad review it and have incorporated some of that feedback. I’ll add a bit more too I’m sure. I haven’t even breached Ephesians 6 yet, but it will come as the Spirit moves the words around my mind and heart.
I thought today would be an appropriate time to share a small excerpt from the book as it is so pertinent for us as Christians to stand firm. Yet, we must understand upon whom we are Standing Firm and for what cause.
Our savior was courageous, and we too must be courageous if we are going to follow the example of Jesus. To be sure we will never be perfect as Jesus was. Yet, it is incumbent upon us to give it all we have and ask God to help us to have enough.
Where is the courage of our forefathers in the faith? Are we going to play the man or wilt like daffodils in the heat? It is as designed that we must have courage to endure ridicule and to lose the praise of man. For even our Lord was worshipped on the day He entered Jerusalem, only to be crucified on the next Friday! But for man, the first battle to be won is with his own flesh. The struggles of every man born into a fallen world. Here is where we start and here is where we find ourselves at mortal death.
For men, the first key component in this struggle is the truth. The truth that is Jesus and a Christian worldview. Jeremiah 7:28 says, “And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.” The knowledge, proper teaching and acceptance of Truth has perished. This is the sad result when men lose their courage, when a man is not manful. Facing and believing the truth is one of the most important trials for man in this fallen world. It is crucial to be an objective observer of what is, rather than what you wish it were. A real man calls it like it is and refuses to look away from actual reality. The most important truth is that of the God of the universe who created all things, came as a man to take on our sin, and then hung on a cross for it, rising from the dead three days later. In so doing, He destroyed death, and now we await His return when He will not come humbly, but in blazing glory with His powerful angels to bring judgment on the earth and gather up His Church.
True Manliness: The Courage to Stand Firm
Copyright 2021, Johnathan Sexton
