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Saturday we celebrate and call my son into manhood. The video below is going to be used during the ceremony that will be a milestone in my sons life.
I will write more next week.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2039028313821237820]
This weekend we celebrate our son passing into manhood. Passing into manhood sounds kind of corny, but there is no other word for it in English. We will be having a celebration where we mark his transition from childhood to adulthood.
We have lost those type of events in the modern world and because of this we have boys walking around acting like men. As fathers, we have a duty to call our children, especially our boys, into adulthood. As fathers, we are called to pull our boys out from under their mothers wing and bring them into the fold with other men to help refine their character as they learn to fly on their own. We call them into their destiny as Princes of the Kingdom and teach them how to live as a Godly man.
It is learning to fly where boys learn to be men. It is in sparring with other knights that a boy learns how to fight.
If we refuse to take on this role, if we shrink back and refuse to bless them, we will raise wild boys that are rebellious by nature and fight everyone for respect. If you tell a son who he is from birth, he will never have to find out on his own. Believe me, he will do everything he can to get the blessing of a father, it is a hole that must be filled. If his identity is not established from a Godly man, he will resort to establishing it with his carnal man. The base level response to identity is sexual identity and he will forever try and define himself with his genitals through power.
The same holds true for girls.
Girls that have never had their identity as a daughter of God, a Princess of the Kingdom, established from their earthly father will seek that identity from carnal men. You need look no further than teen pregnancy and abortion rates to realize we have a society full of boys and girls trying to be adults.
It is so easy to change this!
It is such an honor to raise children, they teach us so much. Looking back there are many things I would have done differently, but I did the best I could and in the end I have no regrets. All I had to do was be available and learn from my mistakes. I am certainly not perfect, God knows I still struggle, but I am willing to stumble for my kids. I don’t care how uncomfortable it was to talk to my son about sex, it needed to be done. I don’t care how much pain there was telling him my failures and insecurity in my own identity becuase no one told me I had what it took, I would not pass that on to him.
I love them too much to allow them to experience my failures.
We can use our experiences and failures to push us deeper inside or drive us to change the next generation. All it takes is a phone call, an email, a letter, a lunch. All we have to do is tell our sons they have what it takes to be a man, and tell our daughters they are beautiful.
They need to hear it.
They need to hear it from you, and they will spend the rest of their life trying to fill the void that only a Fathers blessing can fill.
For as long as I can remember, Heaven has always been a place. When I think about it I look up assuming it must be out there. I still have that pull when contemplating Heaven, the draw that it is somewhere up and out of this world.
Exactly where, out there, I can’t be certain, but I think someone should equip people with tracking devices that measure where they look when they think of Heaven. Wouldn’t it be interesting if everyone looked to the same point in space?
The point is, I think most will agree that Heaven is outside this sphere we spin on called earth. Even those that seek Heaven within eventually escape the grips of the earthly realm to enlightenment.
For far too long I used to think that Heaven was the reason for this whole earthly experience. That God took us from Heaven, deposited us in earthly bodies to experience life as a mortal, and if we passed “the test” we got to crawl back up to Heaven. Basically, we lived in some spherical petri dish as God watched from above with the heavenly hosts taking bets on who would make it.
Admittedly, that is quite an irreverent thought, but that was my understanding and from the lives of everyone around me that professed faith in God, was a perfectly logical conclusion. Most people I meet live a life in God that resembles that sentiment. A life constantly anchored from the perspective of just getting through.
The thing is, I don’t buy it.
It doesn’t make any sense that we are sent to the earth just to struggle through to the sweet by and by. What is even worse is that this type of thinking contradicts the attributes of a loving God. Accepting the premise that we serve a loving but conveniently removed God is what leads people to schisms that ultimately force them to reject Him. If we can agree that God is good and God is love and hold on to that basic character trait of God, then there can only be one reason for the state of our life.
Us.
This is where it gets difficult.
Pointing the finger back to us is the last thing anyone wants to do. We have made responsibility for our own lives the forbidden topic. We need look no further than our politics to see the end game of this type of thinking. When we refuse to look inside and ask God to change our condition and instead start blaming God for that condition, it puts us in opposition to the very nature of God. Once in opposition to who He is we must reject Him which leaves us once again with ourselves. Having the finger pointed back at us with no hope remaining for change we create a surrogate called government.
We can’t escape it, no matter how much we squirm we are still responsible because being responsible is why we are here. God made us sovereign on this planet to rule over it and instead of exercising that authority to change our own lives, we give that authority to elected officials to rule over us. The more we reject the authority in our own lives ordained by God, the more that delegated authority will be turned back to rule over us!
Jesus said an interesting thing in Matthew 28. Actually, Jesus said quite a few interesting things in Matthew 28 but this one is key. “All authority has been given to me”.
All.
Not some, or most, but all. Right after that statement Jesus told his followers to go and make disciples in all nations, baptize them, teach them His ways and that He will be with us to the end.
If Jesus has all authority, what He tells us to do we can do. Period. Jesus only did what the Father told him to do, so in the end we are to do the same. The trick is hearing the Fathers voice and I don’t want to get into that right now, but it still comes down to us.
To help us out Jesus taught us how to pray to God:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom,
the power and the glory are yours.
Now and for ever. Amen
Your Kingdom come, your will be done.
This is where we run astray in our own lives. God gave Adam authority over the planet and Adam gave it away to Satan by betraying God. Adam turned into a bad governor if you will, and the King took away his power. Jesus redeemed man through the cross and all authority was given back to Jesus becuase he was obedient. Jesus then gave that authority and right standing back to the sons of Adam. We are now workin’ for the King again. Satan no longer has a right to the authority of this world, Jesus does. When we pray for the kingdom of Heaven to come, we are literally asking God to invade this world with His kingdom.
We are His ambassadors on the earth.
I can’t overemphasize this point. God is sovereign but He will not usurp His own decree that we have authority without our permission. That in a nutshell is why you hear people ask “If God is good, why does a good God let bad things happen?”.
The truth is, it is our fault, we run the place!
When we pray we are essentially asking God to do His will on this earth as it is in Heaven. Since His kingdom is Heaven, whatever is normal there should be normal here. We are saying to God that we recognize the authority Given to us through Jesus and we align that authority to reflect the way things should be in Heaven.
Your will be done here Daddy, let her rip!
Jesus also told us to: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.”
Um, Jesus really meant we should do that, becuase I don’t think people are sick in Heaven! Pretty sure they are all alive, free of incurable diseases, and certainly not demon possessed.
I don’t know about you, but when I think about doing all that I get a little freaked out. I also get a little excited becuase I have been seeing more of it happen in and around my life.
The problem is I don’t see it happen all the time and I am earnestly pointing the finger inward and asking why, it obviously must be me.
