The Quest #13: The Good News Solution To The Wounded Heart

 

“For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.  But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” Titus 3:3-6

 Rabbi Nic’s Story

This is about a guy in the New Testament who is struggling with the same issues we struggle with -- but he was from a super-religious background. 

It’s found in John 3:1-4 :

“Now there was a man . . . a Pharisee (that’s a religious sect) named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. (He was a scholar, a religious Scholar.) This man came to Him by night and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, we know that You’ve come from God as a teacher for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with Him. And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?’

Nicodemus sounds baffled at this point, but he’s not baffled over the term ‘born again.’ The term ‘born again’ was one used regularly in Jewish society at this time, culturally speaking. It was used when a boy was circumcised. He was ‘born again’ into the House of Israel – into the covenant -- as a child. A Gentile who was baptized into Judaism in those days was said to be ‘born again.’ When a man was married to a wife, he was ‘born again.’ All these new phases of life or new seasons of life were signaled or coined by the term ‘born again.’ 

In fact, in Judaism, there were eight born-again experiences you could have as a man over your life-time.

The last born-again experience for any man, if he was to have this last, was kind of the highest. It happened after he turned 40 and he was selected to be a rabbi – a teacher of Israel. It was the greatest born again experience you could have. Nicodemus, as a ruler of the Jews, had had that experience for himself. It was the highest phase of life for a Jew.

Please note here’s Nicodemus who’s had all these born-again experiences a man could have, he’d been circumcised, he had been bar mitzvahed, he had been married, he was over 40 and he was a rabbi – in fact, one of the leading rabbis within Israel! Why he’s baffled is because Jesus looked at this super-religious man – old Nic – and still says to him ‘you must be born again. Notice, He says to Nicodemus, ‘Truly, truly I say to YOU –[I’m not speaking to anybody else; it’s just you and Me here…] but I say to you, ‘you have to be born again’ and Nicodemus says, “Well, how can I be born again? I’m old; I’ve done it all; I’ve experienced it all; I’ve had all the seasons of life that a man can have; what else is there?”

Jesus is saying to him, ‘Yes, you’ve had all those. It’s just the most important one you haven’t had yet. The one that’s called ‘born of the spirit’.

The hardest person to reach is not the non-religious, depraved person, it’s the religious, depraved person - they are the hardest to reach. Not the secularist – it’s the religionist. It’s not the crazy guy - it’s the church guy. They often are the hardest people to reach. It’s the person who grew up in church, heard the words, saw the sights, recited the creeds and sang the songs – and was dutiful and regular in his church attendance, but who has never been changed from within by a life-changing encounter, where in desperation in his lostness, he gave his life away to the Savior of the world. He’s never had that. He’s had everything else – he just hadn’t had a life changing encounter with Jesus. They assume – and are sometimes are even assured – that in doing church, in being confirmed, or being baptized or singing in the choir, or growing up in a Christian home, or being married in the church – that somehow all these ‘born-again’ experiences are enough.

Comrades, I want you to know – those are good experiences – but they’re just not the essential experience. You can have all those experiences, but you’d better have the one that really counts the most, the one that Jesus is talking about here: being born from within of the Spirit. That experience deals with the deepest wound in a man’s life. It goes to the darkest corner and finally turns the light on. If you haven’t had that experience, everything else is irrelevant:

—John 3:5-10  “Jesus answered and said, ‘truly, truly’ (now if somebody says ‘truly, truly’ it’s almost like shouting “This is the truth. This is the truth.”) I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is just flesh; and that which is born of Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you ‘you must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it’s going. So is everyone who is born of the spirit. (It’s mysterious. It cannot be manufactured by human will. It’s of God. That’s what He’s saying’.) So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ “Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ and Jesus said to him (kind of marveling at Nicodemus) ‘Are you (not just a teacher of Israel?) Are you the teacher in Israel and you don’t understand these things?”

He had that kind of standing among the people, yet he couldn’t speak the real language. It’s just like men today can do everything, but they can’t tell you what a man is. They can’t speak manhood language. They can connect on sports and business, and superficial recreations, but they cannot connect at the heart, because they don’t have a heart language.

Jesus is saying, ‘yeah, you can connect up here with creeds and what church you go to, but you cannot connect at the deeper, Spirit language.’ Nicodemus was in that camp. One man was wanting to talk about theological rituals, and the other man wanting to talk about a transformation of a fallen nature. That alone is key to a man being redirected. Then he can move out of his own self-centered existence to the noble things of a spiritual existence. He finds the bent that he has towards his own godlessness bent back by the Spirit to a God-seeking nature. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be perfect, it just means you’ve been changed at the core. Only God can make that change in you. That’s what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus.

If what you call faith takes you back to the great liturgies of the church – and there are a lot of great liturgies in the church – or what you call faith takes you back to traditions or church attendance - or when you think about faith you think ‘Baptist’ or ‘Methodist’ or ‘Presbyterian’ or ‘Catholic’ – as the first thoughts in your mind. If most of your spiritual highs come from singing some great song in a church, or reciting a great creed, or stained glass, or those kinds of things. If that’s where your thoughts go, and they don’t go to a recreated spirit

Everyone has to be recreated if you’re going to go from a superficial manhood to an authentic manhood. We’ve talked about the darkness of our own heart the last 2 days. We’re wounded by birth. We’re healed by re-birth, and that is the essence, core and bottom line of manhood. Without it, everything else is futile.

Nicodemus didn’t like hearing what he heard, because he wanted religion to be the real thing, and it wasn’t. So, what is the ‘real thing?’ Let me give you three phrases from what this story tell us. 

1.                  In verse 5 and verse 8, you see the little phrase ‘born of the spirit’. It means that the real thing is a supernatural rebirth. It’s not something that you can make happen. Only God can make it happen. It’s something you can only receive by faith - just simply by believing. 1John 1:12-13 says: “But as many as received Him, it’s to them that He gave the right to become children of God.”

They received Him how? By faith, by believing He could change their hearts. That’s the only way I can get my heart changed is if God changes it. It’s to them that He gives the right to start becoming children of God, only to those who believe in His name.

1John 1:13“…who were born not of blood (that means you can’t be born into the faith) not of the will of the flesh (it’s not natural ability; you’re not strong enough, smart enough, quick enough) nor of the will of man (you can’t say ‘I’m just gonna be better.’ You can’t will it. He says you can’t do any of those things. So how are we born again? It says) of God.”

It has to come from His hand, graciously given to you, as He gives His Spirit to you to recreate you anew from within, and then you spend the rest of your life getting it on the outside. That’s called the Christian life. Real spiritual life is not a religion. It’s a life-changing encounter when God, not only forgives our sins not only forgives our sin, but He changes our nature. God puts a seed of life at the very core of our being and from that time on, there is something inside us that yearns to be like Him. Then He offers His Spirit over a lifetime to begin to reclaim all the ground we have lost and to change us as we continue to yield ourselves to Him by faith. But it starts in the moment we give up ourselves, and we look to God in need, to change us from the inside out. We are then “Born of the Spirit.”

2.                  Secondly, notice the word ‘must’ in verse 7. It tells us the real thing means an irreplaceable re-birth. It’s irreplaceable. There is no substitute for it. The church can’t replace it:-   a religious experience or tender moment can’t replace it - theological education can’t replace it -   good deeds can’t replace it - personal reform can’t replace it, where you say, “hey! I stopped drinking! I got out of debt!” None of those are a substitute for what I’m talking about.

Jesus said, without being born again from within, you’re excluded from the kingdom of God.

3.                  Third, notice the word ‘you’ in verse 7. It tells us that the real thing must be a personal rebirth. A personal rebirth. This is an issue between you and God only. You weren’t born into it because mom and dad were good Christians. I know a lot of kids who grew up in great Christian homes who never understood that they personally must make the same choice that their parents courageously made years before. We are only reborn when in our individual hearts, we alone by faith cry out to God to change us – and we mean it’ Then God reaches within us and says, “Now, I’m going to change you from within, and you’ll never be the same.’

So, where are you? What’s your story? That’s the real question today. and where are you in relationship to this kind of spiritual truth? The whole world has a need to be transformed from within. 

Let me ask you the question. Are you Comrades man enough to hear it? Have you been born again? When I make that statement, do you go back to a place where, regardless of how you’re living it out, you know there was a moment where you gave up your life and you embraced His life and something happened. Maybe you’re even stifling some of that growth. But from within, there’s an impulse that wants to get out, and you know that, and you respond to it even today.

Or when I ask that question, what you experience is confusion and doubt, just like Nicodemus.

Maybe you’re saying “what are you talking about?”

This is extremely important because you will never deal with the deepest wound until you embrace Christ in faith and plead with Him to change your darkened heart, like I did some 16 years ago.

Now, in this great hall of masculinity, I want to ask you, would you like to do that now? Would you like to invite the living God to come into you and to begin a reconstruction process, the ultimate footing – a foundation that’s laid where your nature has a chance to be changed.

 All I can offer to you is a simple prayer. If you want to you can pray this prayer with me this right now. I’ll lead you. 

If this expresses the desire of your heart now - where you are now - if something from within you is crying out to saying, “I need this,” - then you pray these words

🙏🏿PRAY: Dear GOD, I admit that I am a sinner and I want to have a relationship with You. Please forgive me for all of the wrong things I have done. I believe in my heart that JESUS died and rose again to take away my sin, and I declare JESUS CHRIST as my LORD and SAVIOR. Please fill me with Your HOLY SPIRIT that I may be faithful to You. Thank you for saving me and for letting me become Your child. Please speak to me and help me to hear Your voice and to follow Your ways. I look forward to spending time with You, both here on earth and in heaven. In JESUS' name I pray, amen.

If you prayed that prayer for the first time – you’ve never prayed that before – then you be man enough to tell someone and fill in your details below

🤝 Say YES to JESUS, Click  HERE

For those of you who made the decision today to invite Jesus Christ into your life, I’ve got one word for you as I close. Welcome to GOD’s Family! 

👍🏽 Robert Lewis

▶️ Men Of Courage Playlist

💪🏽Men Of Courage WhatsApp Group

📩 Join eMail List

---

ℹ️ One Way Ministries

📞‪‪+256783171572

📧 info.1wayministries@gmail.com

✆ WhatsApp Community

ⓕ Facebook

▶️ YouTube 

The Quest #12: Implications of the Heart Wound

  

There’s a real heart wound. Not physically; it’s a spiritual wound and it’s deep. And it comes with birth. It’s imprinted within our very nature.

It explains why people who grow up in even the best environments go bad. It explains why some of the most educated cultures of the world have done some of the most heinous crimes against humanity. Only the heart wound explains those things.

It’s a deep wound. But the truth is we don’t come into this world good. That’s the hard truth. We come into this world wounded – with a fallen, self-serving nature that often corrupts life; with no connection to eternity – even though there is a sense of it in our heart that we bear all the way through this life. We have this innate sense that there’s something more, but we’re not connected to it. We come into this world alienated from the God who made us.

That’s the truth, Until we engage what our culture doesn’t want to see; until we think about why we are the way we are, and why we struggle the way we do, we’re cutting off from the very lifeblood of learning, how to become an authentic man.

At the core of being an authentic man, a man must come to terms with himself and his nature, and why he is the way he is, and how he’s been equipped for ill or for good in this world. Part of that is discovering the deepest wound of all, which is the heart wound. Today, we’ll talk about the implications of what all this means.

Heart Wound Defined

By this wound we mean that we are all fallen and flawed creatures, at odds by nature with our Creator and with each other. 

Ephesians 2:3 says: “We started out bad, being born with evil natures.”

By ‘evil natures’ it means selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed and because of that, there are no born good guys. There are no ‘pure hearts’. There is no one who has natural nobility. Those don’t just arise out of nature. Instead, Romans 3 puts it this way:

“There is none righteous; not even one. There is none who understands; there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good; there is not even one.” Romans 3:10-12

 There are no pure hearts. Men are not born good men. We’re all fallen and flawed creatures and the world is our journey to find redemption from that.

The Pain That Flows from This Wound

Four things, the Scripture says:

1. First, We’re born separated from God. Ephesians 2:12 says: “Remember that you were once separate from Christ, having no hope and without God in the world.”

This is how every person enters the world: separate from Christ and without God. That’s because, as we learned Yesterday, the original unity between God and man was severed when our first parents – it’s unfortunate it goes back to our first parents, Adam and Eve, who disobeyed God, dismissed His word, and in their own flesh decided to go their own independent way. In that moment, because of that heinous crime against heaven, their natures were cursed and the relationship with God was broken and that condition became permanent. It was passed down to every generation that flowed out of their loins, which means all of us. So we all come into the world with our relationship to God broken and with out natures cursed, that is flawed, or contained in such a way that the only thing that we really think about the most is ourselves. And that’s called depravity. That’s why Romans 5:18 says:

“Through the one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all people afterwards.”

We all enter the world separate from Christ and without God.

2. Secondly, we’re bound to a life of futility. Solomon puts it this way in Ecclesiastes 1:14. He says:

“I’ve seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind.”

Without God, without a sense of God in our life, the only motivation left is to get all we can, while we can. The only two realities for man without God are pleasure and pain. That’s it. That’s how we live our lives: trying to escape pain; trying to pursue pleasure in whatever forms they take. That’s because there’s no higher purpose unless something happens along the way to alter that perspective. That pursuit -- that vanity – is imprinted within us because our nature is limited to seeing this life as all that there is.

3.  Third, we’re enslaved to a corrupt nature. Here’s the way Job said it, in Job 5:7. He said:

“Man is simply born for trouble as sparks fly upward.”

That’s why in Scripture we’re called sinners. Now that’s a very unpopular term today.

The word ‘sin’ really means to miss the mark. and the Scripture says we were born sinners. We are sinners. We go out and prove it by sinning. What that means is that we go out into life and we just keep missing the mark. We miss it in our marriage; we miss it in our parenting; we miss it in our personal lives; we miss it in our relationships with each other; we miss it with our ethical edge. We just keep falling a little short. We can’t seem to fully measure up.

If we refuse to see why that’s taking place – if we refuse to see that that’s part of our nature – then we cut ourselves off from the solution of how to change it all, and we become enslaved to that sin nature.

4. Finally, we’re bent to do evil. Galatians 5 says, when we talk about missing the mark and the bent that we have to do evil:

“But when you follow after your own inclinations, your lives will produce these evil results: impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, hatred, and fighting, jealousy and anger; constant effort to get the best for yourself; complaints and criticism; the feeling that everyone else is wrong, except those in your little group. And there will be envy and murder and drunkenness, and wild parties and all that sort of thing.” Galatians 5:19-21a

‘I’m guilty’ -That’s not because somebody trained me that way. As the verse says, I just had a natural bent – an inclination – in that direction, as I came into the world; as I inherited this nature, then I just lived it out. Unless I make some supernatural contact that changes all that, I’ll just naturally move in that direction because it’s me.

Communities Given to This Wound

When a culture – a community, gives itself to believing it’s good or it can be good and it doesn’t need God, it begins to move away from the things that are noble and right, and it begins to move in and actually begins to live out the depravity at a community level. Not only that, but while it does that in its own depravity, it also begins to approve of those things that a more righteous culture would look at and go, ‘Man, that is way off the mark!” And yet a community can get so lost in its own depravity that it doesn’t see it anymore.

It’s interesting when you look into the Old Testament, you see a once-godly community move into its depravity without God, and you see what surfaces. In the New Testament, you see in the Romans and the Greeks a culture that didn’t need God and moved away from that, thinking ‘We can do it! We have the goodness in ourselves.’ You see that same depravity arise, and you see it in our day, as well.

A. In the Old Testament

Look at the description of the culture that believes it’s good and it can do it without God. Here’s what it says in the book of Hosea:

“Hear the word of the Lord, O, sons of Israel. (This is the prophet speaking to this culture.) For the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of this land, because as He looks at it, there’s no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land. (‘we don’t need God; we can do it ourselves.’ But now here’s what is going on in the land as God is removed.) “There is swearing; there is deception; there is murder; there is stealing; there is adultery. They employ violence so that bloodshed follows bloodshed, therefore the land mourns and everyone who lives in it languishes, along with the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky; and also the fish of the sea disappear. (The whole environment is even corrupted.) And yet, and yet, let no one find fault; and let none offer reproof because in this culture, they have gone deep in their depravity.” Hosea 4:1-4a, 9:9a

Does that sound like some country you know?

B. In the New Testament

Go into the book of Romans, and here’s what it says. It’s speaking of the Roman culture, it says:

“They did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, so God gave them (‘Okay, you don’t need Me. You can do it on your own, because you’re so good.’ So God gives them …) over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness and wickedness, and greed and evil and full of envy and murder, and strife and deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful and although they acknowledge the ordinance of God, [they have rules; they’re still on the books] that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but [ just like in Hosea’s day] they give hearty approval to those who practice these things.”  Romans 1:28-32

Does that sound like someplace you’ve been to? 

C. In Our Day 

Even in our day, as we move away from God – as we become a culture of depravity – always the same symptoms surface. You have adultery, you have bloodshed, you have deceit, Corruption and you have people trying to excuse it all. That’s because we refuse to see the obvious.

There’s something wrong deep in our hearts.

The Implications of This Heart Wound Called Depravity

Let’s bring it all down now to how this gets played out in everyday life for you and me.

A. Generally: Here’s what depravity means to the everyday guy who’s out on the street today.

1.    Depravity means we’re all dysfunctional by nature. It means we don’t function properly. We like to think of dysfunctional families ‘that’s not my family’ or another person who’s dysfunctional. ‘That’s not like me; I’m functional.’ No. The Scripture says we’re all dysfunctional at some level. We’re all selfish; self- absorbed, manipulative, blame-minded, greedy, or immoral. At some level, we’re all there. We may not practice it openly and outwardly – maybe we’re too slick for that - but inwardly, we wrestle with those very things.

We’re inclined to these directions, and we don’t have to be taught them. They just surface naturally. You see it in that little infant when you go to take the toy to put it away, and they clutch it and they scream out, “Mine!” They go over, when you have another little child that comes into the home, to beat them up, because they want what’s theirs. Right? And you ask, ‘where did they learn that?’ You weren’t teaching that. No, you didn’t have to teach it; it was imprinted. Depravity means we’re all dysfunctional.

2. Depravity means - and this is very important, guys, for us here on the quest for authentic manhood – most of my real problems are in me; not out there. You know what my depravity leads me to do? I think it leads every man to do this - to play the ‘blame game.’ It’s to look at my world and say, ‘you know, what’s really wrong with me is my employer just doesn’t understand me.’ Or, ‘what’s wrong with me is my wife just doesn’t meet my needs.’ Or ‘my family just doesn’t understand.’ Or, ‘if I just had enough money, because they don’t pay me enough for what I do’. Always my mode of operation is to look outside of myself and excuse me, and blame everything around me for my problems. What we do to ourselves when we do that – and anytime a person or group of people begin to blame everything around them - we doom ourselves to a mediocre life.

When you hear blame constantly coming out of someone, that’s a person who’s never going to get anywhere, because they’re always going to be saying, ‘the reason I can’t get there is because of someone else’. They see most of their problems out there. 

Blame goes all the way back to the fall in Genesis 3:9-13.

“Then the Lord called to the man and said to him (this is after they had gone their own independent way, disobeyed His word and decided ‘we’re going to do it ourselves.’) And God comes that day and He says, “Adam, where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of Thee in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (so the man said, “yeah, I did it.” No, that’s not what he said. He asked Adam a direct question: “Did you eat…?” But see, now, he’s fallen. So he’s playing the game. He’s our chief architect of this new game we’re going to play for generations.) “No, it was the woman You gave me. She’s the problem.” And so God turns to the woman, and she says, “it’s not my problem; it’s the serpent You put here.” 

‘You’re the problem, God, because if You hadn’t put the serpent here, I wouldn’t be in trouble.’ And that’s the way we play the blame game. That’s the way some of you will play the game today or next week to avoid facing the real wound. 

3. Thirdly, depravity cannot be eradicated by education, a better environment, self-understanding or willpower. We must be saved from our depravity. Education can make you better on the outside; it can’t transform you from the inside. Willpower can allow you to put things together, but it can’t transform you. Education or Will Power can cover depravity for a while, but they cannot eradicate it. That’s why Jesus said in John 3:7. He talked to a guy who was very together – at least on the outside – and He still said to him, ‘Nicodemus, you must be born again.’ That’s the only way this wound can be eradicated.

4. Depravity can wear all kinds of sophisticated masks to hide itself - the education mask, the personality mask, the rule-keeper mask, the religious mask. Some of the most depraved people look good. They think smart. They act decent and respectable. They’re culturally acceptable, but in truth they’re slick at sin. Their education has just made them slick. Their personality has made them manipulative; their religion has made them outwardly acceptable, but inwardly they’re slick at sin.

Did you ever wonder – did you ever find it interesting that when Jesus Christ was here on earth the people He got agitated with the most – was most confrontive with – was the religious class? The religious leaders? He talked the strongest to those guys. The clerics. Look what He said here in Matthew 23. He’s talking to the Bishops of the First Century.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of robbery and self-indulgence. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like white-washed tombstones which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.”

You hear of Child abuse or Adultery or Corruption in churches, don’t you? And you wonder, “how can that be?” It’s when a man, regardless of the collar he wears, uses his vocation and his personality and his religion to hide the wound that he won’t face. That’s how it happens! It shouldn’t cause anybody to pull back and go, “I just can’t believe that!” No, that’s exactly the opposite response from what we should have. We should be going, “I can believe that, because I see that in me.” And if I don’t know how to deal with it, it will get me, just like it got them.

5. For me, depravity means that I can’t trust ourselves alone. That’s why the wisdom of the Proverbs says this: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14:12

What that means is instinctively I am going to think selfishly. And my perspectives are going to be selfish. That’s why I need the counsel and the interaction of others. When we talked about friends and mentors, I need them to see life as it really is – not how my rose-colored depravity paints it to be. There are issues some of you men are dealing with right now -- you’re absolutely convinced you know what the answer is. If everybody else would just shape up and get their act together, you’d be okay. Yet, if you got some righteous men to come around you to talk to you about it, to help you penetrate that wall of depravity that can only see things ‘my way, or on my terms, in my time’. Then you would see a whole new world. It would challenge you to be a real man. That’s what we mean by depravity. 

6. Admitting my depravity is the first step to finding a real relationship with God. That’s why you often find the greatest sinners make the greatest saints. Have you ever wondered about that? How some guys can have such a miserable life -- and then they turn it around and they have such a strong and aggressive spiritual life. It’s because they know the depth of their depravity. That’s why the relief from it is so magnificent to them. That’s why it’s so important to admit our depravity. It’s out of the depth of that depravity that they find the need to be so close to God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said this:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit [the ones who come to the end of themselves. They understand that they really do have this issue in their life.] .. for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3

You don’t have to tell them that they’re depraved. They live with a sense of it every day, but it actually becomes an asset because it drives them to God.

7. Finally, progress in authentic manhood will parallel my growing understanding of the depth and extent of my depravity. Paul, at the end of his life, said these words in 1 Timothy1:15. A spiritual giant, at the end of his life; at the height of his maturity, he says this:

“Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am the foremost of all.”

That’s what made him great -- his humility to understand his nature. It also made him a man who could rise above that depravity because he was so aware of it. Any man who gets to the top spiritually will get there, carrying this in his heart.

B. Specifically for Men: What are some of the specific male problems in depravity? Here are three.

1.First, for men depravity means that we have a natural tendency to avoid domestic responsibility. Why is it that the Scripture over and over tells men to lead their homes? Because our tendency over and over again is to not do that. 

Why does it tell men over and over to love and protect and provide for their wives - as Christ loved the church? It’s because our tendency is to ignore those things.

Why does it tell us over and over again to treat them as equals – as a co-heir of the grace of life – to give our hearts to our children? Why is that John the Baptist, when he came, one of his missions was to turn the hearts of fathers to their children? It’s because the hearts of dads oftentimes turn away from their kids naturally. They get consumed in other things, and so the Scriptures are there to redeem the depravity that is innate within us. It’s because we don’t naturally go those directions. 

2.  Secondly, depravity means that men will have a tendency to rule harshly over women and children. Why is it that in every culture women have to fight for equality and dignity? And why is it in every culture children have anger towards Dad? Genesis tells us why. 

Genesis 3:6 God is speaking to the woman and He says, ‘Your desire shall be for your husband.” But then the next verse says, “And he shall rule over you.” 

That’s part of the curse. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for ‘rule over’ - ‘mishaul’ – is a word that implies ‘he will dominate’, he will rule harshly over you.

Now that he’s fallen, he doesn’t know how in his nature to lead you in a way that would allow you to be all that you need to be. What he’ll do naturally is move into the situation and with the strength of his personality, and with the strength of his frame, he’ll take advantage – naturally. He’ll rule over you.

Not only that, but look how Paul speaks of dads and children. He says this in Ephesians: “And fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.”

Why does he have to say that? It is because the natural tendency of dads is to provoke their children to anger. The natural instinct is to tell Children what he did wrong! Instead of affirming or building him up.  Why do we have a natural tendency to wound? Because it’s in our nature. We need to be redeemed from that.      

Paul says, “Dads, don’t provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

3.  Then, finally, depravity means that men tend to get lost in their careers and personal pursuits and ignore God’s greater purposes for their lives. Of all people, Solomon knew that, because that’s exactly what he did. here’s what he said about himself in the book of Ecclesiastes:

“I’ve enlarged my works; I’ve increased houses, pools, gardens. I’ve collected for myself silver and gold and the pleasures of men – all that my eyes desired. I did not refuse them. And then I considered all my activities and behold, all was vanity and striving after wind.”

It’s empty. men will naturally move that direction unless something pulls them back to that which is noble.

Is there a solution to all this? There is. It’s a radical solution; it’s a mysterious solution; it’s a life-changing solution; it’s a supernatural solution; it’s a faith-leaping solution. Stay tuned for Tomorrow

👍🏽 Robert Lewis

▶️ Men Of Courage Playlist

💪🏽Men Of Courage WhatsApp Group

📩 Join eMail List

---

ℹ️ One Way Ministries

📞‪‪+256783171572

📧 info.1wayministries@gmail.com

✆ WhatsApp Community

ⓕ Facebook

▶️ YouTube