Click here to return to Blog Post Intro
Abraham: The Principle of Believing God Anyway
God graciously “forces” our faith to grow by creating or permitting situations that require us to find reserves of faith we don’t even know we have. And through that process, we become stronger, wiser men. We become men of faith.
God makes men by showing us how we can believe Him anyway in the face of what seem like impossible circumstances. Abraham faced three different tests that, by degrees, you and I will also face—if we haven’t already.
First, Abraham was asked, “Will you believe God’s great promise for an invisible future or cling to the visible present?”
The book of Hebrews puts Abraham’s response succinctly: “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). By faith. Obeyed and went. Even though he did not know where he was going.
This is not some crazy, ancient idea. It’s part of the normal Christian life. Faith is letting the reality of the unseen rule over the unreality of the seen.
Second, Abraham was asked, “Will you trust God to do what seems impossible?” After all, how could he father offspring? He was well over seventy-five years old, and his wife was barren.
Genesis 15:6 says, “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” That single moment is why the New Testament repeatedly calls Abraham the father of our faith. He believed God in the face of unbelievable circumstances.
As Hebrews 11:11 tells us, “By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.”
(For more about Abraham, see my post “Abraham: Father of the Faithful”)
THINKING IN BIBLE TIME
God has an altogether different way of looking at time than we do. From the time God promised a new country to Abraham, it took nearly 500 earth years for that promise to be fulfilled—430 years of slavery in Egypt and 40 years of wandering through the wilderness. But in Bible Time, God fulfilled His promise by noon!
Bible Time has many practical applications. As men, we are often so impatient for change that we make huge decisions—to close a business, to cut off a child, to divorce a wife, to bail out on a home mortgage—because we are impatient. We are not willing to wait on God. We don’t have a concept of Bible Time.
Third, Abraham was asked, “Are you willing to give God the one thing you most want to keep?”
By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death. (Hebrews 11:17–19)
The test God put to Abraham is the same one Jesus puts to us, “Are you willing to give up the one thing you most want to keep?”
What are you hanging on to that keeps you from fully trusting Christ with the details of your life?
The advantage of walking with God in faith over the years is that you actually come to a place where it is harder to doubt than believe, because you have seen Him act so many times before.
Joseph: The Principle of a Greater Good
Nothing is more painful than feeling you’ve been abandoned by God.
Consider Joseph, who illustrates the principle that God makes men by orchestrating even the toughest circumstances of our lives for a greater good. His biblical story beautifully illustrates how this principle works.
In all that gut-wrenching sorrow of being abandoned and sold into slavery by his brothers, the Bible says, “The LORD was with Joseph and he prospered.” The LORD gave him success in everything he did, and Joseph found favor with those who were over him.
Genesis 39:20–21 says, “But while Joseph was there in the prison, the LORD was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.”
God revealed a truth—an insight—so astonishing and so liberating that it gave purpose and meaning to every moment of the entire twenty-two years he had spent in exile and suffering. Here it is: Nothing that happens to us by human decision can ever happen apart from the will of God.
Remember how Joseph responded to his brothers when they were reunited during the famine in Egypt, “God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.” (Genesis 45:4–8)
God revealed to Joseph that He had been sovereignly orchestrating all of the seemingly random circumstances of his life for a greater good. And when that happened, it gave meaning and purpose to all those years when he felt as though God was so far away.
The simple truth is that we can endure almost any amount of pain if we believe it has a purpose. Even in the toughest of circumstances, God’s plan is always the same. It’s to put His power on display in my life and your life to bring about a greater good—one that will bring Him the glory that only He deserves.
One research report claimed that five years after people divorced, a majority wished they would have worked harder to make their marriages work. In fact, an analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households revealed that 86 percent of unhappily married couples who did stick it out found that five years later their marriages were happier.
Family systems scholar Edwin Friedman stated, “In reality, no human marriage gets a rating of more than 70%.”
Morley notes, “Most divorced men I’ve met have attested that the negative impacts of divorce, especially on their children, seem to go on forever. Besides, you’re not the only one whose happiness is at stake.”
Think in Bible Time.
(For more about Joseph, check out my posts “Joseph: From Pit to Prime Minister” and “Successful Leaders of the Bible”)
Moses: The Principle of Personal Transformation
God has an agenda, but we universally come into the Christian faith with our own agendas. And it takes a while to get on the same agenda with God.
God makes men by taking us through a humbling process that fundamentally changes the way we think. God takes our flawed efforts and wilderness experiences and lovingly molds us into men who can accomplish that noble dream He has for each and every man.
Moses wasn’t ready to do what he had been called to do. His character wasn’t deep enough to support his calling—at least not yet.
It’s interesting. Moses had thought God was going to use him powerfully to bring about a great deliverance. Instead, he had to flee for his life into a place that was definitely not flowing with milk and honey.
There were things God wanted to work into the character of Moses, and there were things He wanted to work out of his character, and those things take time—Bible Time.
We tend to be interested in the success of our circumstances—career, family, and even our good works, such as feeding hungry schoolchildren or volunteering for a youth ministry or bringing clean water to a poverty-stricken village. But God is more interested in the success of our character than the success of our circumstances.
God will never sacrifice our character to improve our circumstances. He simply loves us too much to let us destroy ourselves.
“Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). Talk about turning a one-eighty! The wilderness radically changed him.
The process of transformation and learning humility often goes like this:
- I tell God what I’m going to do.
- God responds.
- I beg God to let me do it anyway.
- He humbles me until I listen.
- God tells me what He is going to do.
Moses went before he was sent, and his stumble made him humble.
It’s interesting. When Moses considered himself adequate to deliver his people, God considered him inadequate. But decades later and a world away, when Moses considered himself inadequate, God considered him exactly right for the job. He passed his final exam. He graduated. He was transformed into a different kind of man—a humble man ready to live in utter dependence on the Lord.
(For more about Moses, check out my posts on “Moses: Learning to Look Ahead” and “Successful Leaders of the Bible”)
Gideon: The Principle of the Unexpected Leader
Has God presented you with a calling, task, or mission so daunting that it raises all kinds of doubts and fears?
God makes men by turning our weakness into strength in such a striking way that only He can get the glory.
Gideon was maybe the most unlikely man in the entire Bible to be a “mighty warrior” and lead an army.
Never has there been a more reluctant, confidence-lacking, fear-filled leader. And here is the secret: We see ourselves as we are, but God sees us as we are going to be.
Haven’t we all, like Gideon, thought the Holy Spirit was speaking to our hearts, but still we weren’t 100 percent sure? We wondered, “Is that really You, Lord?”
God gave us the story of Gideon as an example of how God makes men. The message is clear. If you need a sign because you are reluctant or fearful, God is not opposed to giving you some encouragement along the way.
God didn’t want the strongest, most powerful man—or army—to lead. He wanted His people to realize that it was the power of God, and not their own strength, that was saving their nation. “So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained” (Judges 7:3). Now the odds against them were more than thirteen to one!
In what must have seemed like an absurdity to Gideon, the Lord then said, “There are still too many men” (Judges 7:4). Eventually God reduced the fighting forces down to a mere three hundred men—the famous “Gideon’s 300.” Then He said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men … I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands” (Judges 7:7).
Our weakness is the ideal medium for God to display His power and presence. God works through the present and willing, not the absent and able.
God is far more likely to give you a ministry out of your weakness than to give you a ministry out of your strength. In fact, God turns weakness into strength—His strength.
David: The Principle of Correction
God’s discipline is a good thing—even when it’s severe—because that’s how He “forces” us back to Him. God makes men by doing whatever it takes to correct and restore us when we go astray.
In the life of David, we see how much good a man can do as an image of God, yet we also see how much bad that same man can do as a product of the Fall.
When David failed—after committing adultery and murder, God orchestrated an intervention to confront, rescue, and restore David. David responded in repentance, and his sins were forgiven. Forgiveness doesn’t mean, however, that there won’t be consequences. Four sons died, two sons conspired against him, and his precious daughter was raped.
David really was a man after God’s own heart. Yet one lusty decision set off a chain reaction that tainted a lifetime of good. Here’s how the Bible summarizes his life: David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD’S commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. (1 Kings 15:5) David will always have an asterisk after his name indicating the blot on his character.
David learned obedience by being disciplined. Obedience to Christ is the trademark of a biblical Christian. If we will not obey His Word, then God will graciously discipline us until we do. His discipline forces us to seek the God that success makes us think we don’t need.
How can we guard our hearts “above all else”? The best way to guard your heart is to become a man of the Word—read it, memorize it, quote it, live it. The Word of God has unique spiritual power not only to rebuke and correct us but also to teach and train us.
Another way to guard your heart is to be the same man in private that you are in public. It’s the idea of living “one life, one way.”
(For more about David, check out my posts “Communicating Vision: Learning from Moses, King David, and Jesus” and “Successful Leaders of the Bible”)
Solomon: The Principle of Success That Matters
Morley explains, “As someone who works with men as my vocation, I find surprisingly few men—Christian or otherwise—who are genuinely content with who they are and what they do. I have several theories, but they all point back to a man’s thinking he can have the best of both worlds—the best of a Christian worldview and the best of what the world has to offer.”
God makes men by making it impossible for us to find lasting happiness in any pursuit apart from Him.
Solomon was the greatest man of his era. But along the way, something went terribly wrong. He lost his desire to put God first. He began, instead, to look to his own accomplishments, power, wealth, and pleasures for meaning. And it wasn’t working.
Solomon’s mistake was to pursue meaning apart from God. The message for us is clear. Apart from God, life has no meaning. Apart from God, life has no enduring happiness.
God wants men, who will revere him. God will not force you to revere Him, but He will make it impossible for you to be happy unless you do.
In business, there is a popular axiom that states, “Your system is perfectly designed to produce the results you are getting.” It works for our belief systems too. In other words, we each have a belief system that is perfectly designed to produce the results we are getting.
When we make anything into an idol, God will deal with us in one of three ways:
- He will withhold the thing we think we can’t live without.
- He will remove the thing we think we can’t live without.
- Or He will give us so much of it that we gag on it.
It’s not really worldly success we want anyway, but rather we want the security, contentment, peace, and joy we think it will give us.
God put the example of Solomon’s matchless wealth, power, and wisdom in His Word so none of us can ever say, “If I just had enough money, power, and wisdom, then I would be happy.”
Solomon concluded Ecclesiastes with this sobering advice:
(For more about Solomon, check out my post “Solomon and the Law of the Big Mo”)
Nehemiah: The Principle of a Passionate Calling
God makes men by turning what breaks our hearts into a passionate calling to help redeem some broken part of His world.
Nehemiah knew was that he had a heavy heart. But instead of acting in his own strength or wisdom, he humbled himself, prayed, sought God, and repented of their wicked ways—just as God’s Word instructs. The first step to solve any problem related to sin and disobedience is to pray a prayer of humble repentance. Repentance sets the stage for everything good that follows. Repentance necessarily precedes vision or a plan or a solution.
Don’t miss this sequence of how God called Nehemiah to his specific task: first came the heartbreaking weight of a burden, followed by a deep sense of sorrow and repentance, which led to a new vision to do something about the problem. Only then did he take action.
When you feel so deeply about a problem that you’re inspired to get involved, that’s a calling. So here’s the pattern we learn from Nehemiah. At the point of repentance, God will send a man.
God prepares this man for the task and provides whatever is needed for him to carry it out—but rarely without opposition.
Wherever you are in the process of finding and fulfilling your calling, God will give you what you need so that you, along with Nehemiah, can say, “Because the gracious hand of my God was upon me.”
Let’s look at four possible scenarios in which you may find yourself:
- “I Don’t Know What to Do”: First, perhaps you don’t have a burden. What can you do about that? If you don’t see a problem that breaks your heart, you’re walking around with your eyes shut. There are so many parts of this world that need to be redeemed either in culture or lost souls. Could it be that your life is just too comfortable at the moment?
- “I’m Reluctant to Begin”: If you feel the ache of a burden but have not acted, you need to understand that you are being disobedient to God. And this is true for you: you sincerely want to do something powerful for God and to be God’s redemptive agent in the world and to make a difference.
- “I’m Trying, but to Be Honest, It’s a Struggle”: Paul’s encouragement is as follows, “Let us not become weary in doing good” (Galatians 6:9). Timing belongs to God. Outcomes belong to God. So our job is to be faithful, not to produce a particular outcome. You can’t pull this off. But Jesus can.
- “It’s Really Happening!”: You have the thrill of seeing God work through you. Becoming the man God wants you to be, however, is not principally about personal fulfillment. Our callings are about what God wants, what God is doing, what God is changing, what God is transforming.
Job: The Principle of Suffering for No Apparent Reason
Suffering is an important part of how God molds us into the men He wants us to be. Which leads us to the principle this chapter is based on: God makes men by allowing us to gain through suffering what can be gained no other way.
Job was clinging to his integrity. He was clinging to his faith. Verse 22 says, “In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” Even after multiple severe tragedies struck, Job did not sin by blaming God.
Let’s be careful not to give formulaic answers for people’s pain. We’re tempted all the time to attach reasons to people’s sufferings. But except for when it’s clear that we’re suffering for doing right or wrong, we just don’t know. What we do know is this: Suffering is a part of God’s plan of redemption. And it’s also a part of His plan for making us into the men He wants us to be.
This man’s integrity led to prosperity and made him a great man. But it was suffering that led him to hear God as he had never heard Him before. Suffering allows us to hear the voice of God in a key that is audible only to the ears of the brokenhearted.
God allows Christians to go through the same trials as non-Christians so the world can see that Christ is real. Suffering is part of the deal. But there’s a larger truth: One of the chief ways we become the men God wants us to be is through the crucible of suffering.
There are no instances of meaningless suffering in the Bible.
We saw this in the lives of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Gideon, David, Solomon, and Nehemiah, and now we see it in the life of Job.
Peter: The Principle of Making Disciples
Discipleship is a moral issue. In fact, we could say this: Anything less than a plan to disciple every willing person is a catastrophic moral failure.
But as you can see, it is every Christian’s mission and duty—starting at home. Failure to disciple at home leads to failure everywhere.
God makes men by a process of calling, equipping, and sending us so we can call, equip, and send others.
As Peter once said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” But that awestruck moment of humility, faith, and repentance is precisely what Jesus is looking for—the starting point of how God makes men.
His challenge to us, like it was to Peter, is to follow Jesus—to give Him our lives and then be the witnesses who tell others how they can follow Him too.
Jesus brought ordinary men together in authentic relationships where He equipped them to accomplish extraordinary tasks. That was, and is, the elegant simplicity of God’s plan to make men who will be qualified to reach other men.
Anything that will move a man along toward spiritual maturity is equipping. God’s challenge to each of us is to let Him change the way we think and what we do, then equip others to do the same.
Making disciples starts at home. Your most important ministry is to your wife. After your wife, your most important ministry is to your children. A man’s number-one discipleship group must be his family. Finally, once you have your own house in order, then you can have a disciple-making ministry to others.
THE MINISTRY OF GIVING PEOPLE A NUDGE
Our job is to be faithful, not to produce a particular outcome. It’s the ministry of giving people a nudge—whether that’s calling them to live in Christ, equipping them to live like Christ, or sending them to live for Christ. Simply be with them—the people whom God has placed in your path. Nudge them along. Everybody deserves a nudge. And you’re just the man who can do it!
(For more about Peter, check out my posts “Learning from the Apostle Peter on Double-Loop Learning” and “Successful Leaders of the Bible”)
Paul: The Principle of a Surrendered Life
The creed of a servant is “Wherever, whenever, whatever.” No reservations. No holding back. Increasingly surrendered.
God makes men by forging us into humble servants who are increasingly surrendered to the lordship of Jesus.
Typically when we first come to Christ, we feel a lot of excitement. But then most of us try to have the best of both worlds. We try to have the best of what the Christian life has to offer without giving up our pursuit of the best of what the world has to offer. We tend to make a partial surrender of our lives.
There is a God we want, and there is a God who is. They are not the same God. The turning point of our lives is when we stop seeking the God we want and start seeking the God who is.
Morley reflects, “I had wanted to change God, but God wanted to change me. He wanted me to follow Jesus with my whole heart: wherever, whenever, whatever.”
Dr. Adrian Rogers, a famous 20th-century Baptist pastor, once went on a mission trip to Romania. Over the course of two weeks, he bonded with his interpreter but hadn’t learned much about the man’s thoughts. So toward the end of the trip, he asked the man, “Tell me, what do you think of American Christians?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” came the strange reply. This, of course, only made Dr. Rogers more curious, so he began to press the man for an answer.
After several attempts, Dr. Rogers finally said, “Why won’t you tell me? I really want to know.”
Finally, the interpreter capitulated. “Well, OK then, but you’re not going to like my answer. I don’t think you Americans understand what Christianity is all about. Back in the 1960s, you started to use the word ‘commitment’ to describe your relationship with Christ. However, any time a word comes into usage, another word goes into disuse.”
The man continued, “Until the 1960s, you Americans talked about ‘surrender’ to Christ. Surrender means giving up control, turning over all to the Master Jesus. By changing to the word ‘commitment,’ your relationship with Christ has become something you do, and therefore you are able to keep control. ‘Surrender’ means giving up all rights to one’s self. You Americans don’t like to do that, so, instead, you make a commitment.”
(For more about Paul, check out my posts “Paul and His Team: What the Early Church Can Teach Us About Leadership and Influence”; “Successful Leaders of the Bible”; “Time Management Lessons from Moses, David, Paul, and Peter Drucker”; “Learning Situational Leadership from Moses, Jesus, and Paul”; and “Are you called to Lead?” based on John MacArthur’s book Called to Lead: Leadership Lessons from the Life of the Apostle Paul )
Summary
- From Abraham we learned about faith—that God makes men by showing us how we can believe Him anyway in the face of what seem like impossible circumstances.
- Joseph taught us about perseverance—that God makes men by orchestrating even the toughest circumstances of our lives for a greater good.
- Then we turned to Moses to teach us about transformation—how God makes men by taking us through a humbling process that fundamentally changes the way we think.
- After that, we looked at the story of Gideon to learn about real strength—and saw that God makes men by turning our weakness into strength in such a striking way that only He can get the glory.
- The sobering story of David reminded us about discipline—how God makes men by doing whatever it takes to correct and restore us when we go astray.
- Then we turned to Solomon to learn about true happiness—that God makes men by making it impossible for us to find lasting happiness in any pursuit apart from Him.
- In the story of Nehemiah we learned about how God calls men to action—that God makes men by turning what breaks our hearts into a passionate calling to help redeem some broken part of His world.
- In the story of Job we gained insight into suffering—that God makes men by allowing us to gain through suffering what we can gain no other way.
- When we came to Peter, we learned the compelling principle of discipleship—how God makes men by a process of calling, equipping, and sending us so we can call, equip, and send others.
- Finally, through the passionate story of Paul, we learned about surrender—that God makes men by forging us into humble servants who are increasingly surrendered to the lordship of Jesus. And that’s how God makes men!