Rebuilding Christian Men

By Randy Knapp

When God created man in his own image, he wasn’t fooling around. He gave us power to be “masters over all life, to fill the earth and subdue it.” Sculpting with lavish abandon he infused us with His own nature. With wet clay still dripping from His fingertips, He completed His masterwork and set us free to explore the earth.

When He presented men with the gift of fatherhood, He wrapped His future hopes and dreams for all of mankind in a tiny naked bundle and placed it in our outstretched arms. With this act of faith, God said, “I trust you with My heart.” As with the servants of Matthew 25, God now waits to see how we’ll perform as stewards of His gift.

With what legacy will we bless our children? What will we teach them about love, responsibility, wealth, influence, or power?

When Jesus came to our world, He was confronted with our common realities, but He was not distracted by any of them. When He was hungry, He didn’t crave food to fill his stomach. He said God’s words would fill His need. When He was given access to power, He chose to kneel and serve power-hungry men. When He was presented with pain and disease, He vanquished it.

When He was confronted with death, He embraced it with all its horrors and triumphed over it.
In all these things He chose not to employ the conventional wisdom of His day. Jesus showed us that it is possible to walk on top of the water. Why do we slog through the mud puddles? Jesus told us that God dresses the grass and the flowers on some distant hillside in more beautiful clothing than kings could afford, and He can surely take care of our needs. Why do we worry about our next paycheck and how it will cover all our bills?

What Jesus taught us and what we aim for are sometimes in two entirely different realms. What are we going to do with the naked bundles of God’s hopes and dreams which He has presented to us? How can we teach our children about things we have yet to fully comprehend?
The elusive answer is not far away. Imagine that we are standing on the edge of a precipice, hanging onto a secure rope with one hand for safety. God’s dreams for us are dangling out in empty space just beyond our reach.

Jesus says that it’s okay to let go and leap. It’s called faith. He asked Abram to take that leap and he made a nation. He asked a little boy named David to take that leap and he made a kingdom. He asked a grieving mother to take that leap, and then He lifted her son off a funeral stretcher and gave him back to her alive and whole.

As long as we fear the plunge into the abyss, we will never let go of the things that hold us so securely to this earth. If it is possible to walk on water, I’m pretty sure that it is equally feasible to step out into thin air and grasp God’s dreams for us. All we have to do is learn to think in a new way – to view the world with a new paradigm, to see reality through the eyes of Jesus.
When we seek Jesus, we will find Him IF we seek Him with all our hearts. And the contrary is true. We will find nothing if we seek Him with less ambition. What is at risk is worth our all-out effort.

We certainly don’t need more money when families are falling apart. We don’t need new cars when children are dying for our attention. We don’t need bigger houses when our society is floundering.

What the world needs, and what will save our families and our society is Godly men striving together to accomplish one goal – to truly seek Jesus Christ, and to find Him.

The well-being of those tiny naked bundles is hanging in the balance. He’s confidently waiting to see if we’ll risk our lives to save them.

Randy Knapp writes from Medford, Oregon.