Gary Yagel

Your Wife Craves Heart Intimacy with You

Paul continues his instructions for husbands in Eph 5:19: Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but NOURISHES and CHERISHES it. Here, Paul goes to the world of tender care for infants for an analogy, using two words loaded with meaning. The first is nourish. The Greek word is EKTREPHO, from TREPHO to rear, to feed, primarily used of children + EK from or out of. The heart of a wife needs to be regularly fed with the ingredients required to nourish her heart just as an infant is dependent upon its mother’s breast milk.

Today, we begin a new series, Loving Our Wives Well Because We Understand the Needs of Their Hearts. Here is a quiz. How would you summarize these statements made by women as to why they were divorcing their husbands?

My husband is no longer my friend.
The only time he pays attention to me is when he wants sex.
He is never there for me, emotionally, when I need him most.
I hurt all the time because I feel alone and abandoned.
We’re like ships passing in the night—he goes his way and I go mine.
My husband has become a stranger. I don’t even know who he is anymore.

What these wives were starving for was heart intimacy with their husbands. It is a heart need of wives that wasn’t even on the screens of these husbands. However, this foundational need of wives for heart intimacy with their husbands is spelled out in at least 5 biblical texts, which this episode explores.
It should not surprise husbands who thoughtfully read of the creation of Eve that a wife has a profound heart need that he doesn’t experience nearly as strongly—the need to feel connected to her husband. After all, she is designed FOR relationship. Adam is created for the ground, from the ground, given a name that means ground, tasked to work the ground, and his sin brings a curse upon the ground. No wonder he loves the earthy part of connecting to his wife! But Eve is made for the man, from the man, given a name that means “out of the man,” assigned to assist the man, and her sin brings a curse upon her relationship with the man. No wonder a lack of heart connection to her husband would be so excruciating to a wife!
This feminine longing for heart intimacy is a foundational part of God’s marriage design. In Genesis 2:24-25, we read, A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed Notice that the goal of marriage is loving intimacy (vs 25) to be “naked and unashamed.” Such loving intimacy happens by joining lives, “a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,” and by joining bodies, “they shall become one flesh.” As husband and wife join their lives, they share their ideas (mind), their decisions (will) and feelings (emotions). This union of hearts, minds, and wills is then celebrated by the joining of bodies in sex. The marriage commitment is to regularly join hearts and bodies. Most men love joining bodies but are clueless about the fact that equally important to God, and usually more important to wives is connecting two naked hearts. Peter seems to have understood this reality, for he commands husbands:
1. Meet Her Need to Feel Understood. Live with Your Wives in an Understanding Way (I Pet 3:7)
“Your wife’s first need” says Peter, “is for you to understand her, which means discovering what is going on in her heart.” Literally this text says, dwell-together according to knowledge. Dwelling together refers to sharing everyday life. The Greek word for “know” is not the word for observing objective facts. Rather, this particular word indicates a relationship between the knower and what is known that progresses into deeper understanding. Peter seems to recognize what psychologists have discovered—that one of the deepest of human needs, especially among women is to feel understood. An astonishing number of men, including ME, entered marriage clueless about this fundamental dimension of marriage—connecting two naked hearts, i.e. emotional intimacy. Steve Arterburn and Fred Stoker, in their book, Every Woman’s Desire, observe:

84% of women feel they don’t have heart intimacy (oneness) in their marriages.
83% of women feel that their husbands don’t even know the basic needs of a woman for emotional intimacy (oneness) or how to provide it.
A large majority of female divorcees say that their married years were the loneliest years of their lives.

Let’s sharpen our picture of heart intimacy. Christian counselor Barbara Rosberg in, The Five Love Needs of Men and Women, cowritten with her husband, explains:
“The word, ‘intimacy’ comes from a Latin word that means ‘innermost.’  What this translates into for those of us in the marriage relationship is a vulnerable sharing of our inner thoughts, feelings, spirit, and true self…This support is achieved through listening, empathy, prayer, or reassurance.”
“Heart intimacy” to a wife means feeling so thoroughly loved and accepted that she easily and constantly shares with her lover what is going on in her heart. To a wife, the heart intimacy she craves is having her husband be her best friend—who loves to talk with her about everything—because that is what best friends do. Rosberg describes one wife’s yearning for heart-to-heart connection: “Melody’s idea of intimacy is sitting on the love seat with Dan, a couple of cappuccinos beside them, a roaring fire in front of them, no kids around them, and plenty of time for a good, long, heart to heart talk” (Ibid). While many Christian men look back on their wedding day as the beginning point for having regular sex, their wives look back upon it is the day they married their best friend. Romance is icing on the cake for them. The core of the relationship is being such close best friends that they stroll through life, arm in arm, sharing the secrets of their hearts, knowing that those secrets will always be valued because their husband loves them unconditionally. The next three biblical truths show how to build and maintain that intimacy.
2. Know What’s Happening in Her Heart. Husbands Should Love Their Wives as Their Own Bodies. He Who Loves His Wife Loves Himself. (Eph 5:28)
Paul recognizes two characteristics of men: 1) they take care of what belongs to them and 2) they default to taking care of themselves. In the deepest possible way, our wives are worthy of special care and devotion because their body so thoroughly belongs to us that to love them is to love ourselves. Here is the point:  Men pay constant attention to their bodies. When my body aches, I groan. When my body is hungry, I eat. When my body is tired, I rest. When my body craves sexual release, I pursue my woman. When my body is wounded, I care for the wound. When my body is sleepy, I nod off. We are so united to our bodies that we cannot ignore them for long. They get our continual attention.
Men default to treating our marriages like our cars or lawnmowers: so long as they keep running, we take them for granted; it is only when they breakdown that they get our attention. Paul says, “Men, take the opposite approach. Your nervous system tells you immediately when your body is in pain. You should be so vigilant to know what is happening in your wife’s heart, that you know right away what she is feeling. Your connection with your wife’s heart should be so strong that it is like the nervous system of your own body.”
Intentional attention to her heart requires skillful listening to help her open it to us. Christian Counselor, Paul Tournier writes “In order to really understand, we need to listen, not to reply. We need to listen long and attentively. In order to help anybody to open his heart, we have to give him time, asking only a few questions, as carefully as possible, in order to help him better explain his experience” (To Understand One Another).
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Maximizing Our Influence as Family Leaders

The call to biblical leadership is the call to serve our families. Accepting our positional authority and using it to firmly discipline our children is crucial for effective influence upon our children. Parenthetically, we don’t need to fear that wielding such authority will harm our relationship with our kids. Scripture assures us, We have had earthly fathers who disciplined us AND WE RESPECTED THEM. Firm discipline, in the long, run wins our kids’ respect. They will not respect a dad who just wants to be their play buddy. On the other hand, to maximize our influence there is no substitute for winning their hearts by caring for them well.

Some years ago, I found myself praying about whether I should pursue a DMin degree and write my dissertation on men’s ministry. But a rather sobering thought struck me. If my kids are in my home roughly twenty years and I live to be seventy, they are only going to be with me 2/7ths of my life. The price of pursuing the degree now will be paid by my 5 kids, who will get less time with me. I decided to put it off until 4 of my 5 kids were in college.
The years of greatest influence in our kid’s lives go by in a flash; so, dads whose kids are still at home, need to know how to maximize their influence, before their kids are launched into a world full of destructive worldviews. But it is not only Dad’s with kids at home who care about their influence. Even if our kids are already launched or have gifted us with grandkids, we also want to know how to maximize whatever influence we can have with both our adult kids and grandchildren. This episode examines God’s two-part design of the influence we wield as spiritual leaders of our home, positional influence and relational influence. In both cases, we must overcome false worldviews that undermine the way God wants us to lead our homes.
This is the third episode in our January series, Leading Our Homes Well in a Culture That Doesn’t Want Us to Lead. Last week we answered the first leadership question, “Where am I taking my family?” noting the biblical answer, to spiritual maturity as Christ’s disciples. Like Paul, home leaders say, One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus… Brothers, join in imitating me. (Phil 3:13ff). Today’s episode examines the second leadership question, which has to do with my relationship with my followers. “How do I use my leadership influence to motivate them to come with me?” The biblical answer to this question, once again, requires us to overcome strong cultural headwinds, i.e. worldviews promoted in the culture, which undermine a man’s leadership calling. We identify four.
A. False Worldview #1: Men Are Unnecessary
This view is rooted in feminism, egalitarianism, and the LGBTQ+ movement. A lesbian couple can parent as well as a heterosexual married couple. Men bring nothing unique to the process of raising children. Egalitarian-leaning, church-going men know their wives have more intuitive insight about kids than they do. When the kids ask permission to do something, their response is, “Go ask your mom.” Such men don’t wear the pants in their family.
Biblical View #1: Fatherhood Is Irreplaceable

Creation, itself, tells us that the nuclear family is not just a social construct. The biological fact that conception takes place in the context of husband and wife making love speaks volumes about the best environment for nurturing that child to healthy adulthood. In God’s obvious creation design, for a child to thrive, he needs a family built on mom and dad’s love for each other.
The family code sections of Ephesians and Colossians are significant. They address wives, then husbands, then children—commanding them to obey their parents. So, we might expect the next group Paul addresses to be parents; but it is not. How about mothers? No. It is striking that when Paul addresses the training of the children, he doesn’t mention mothers but gives commands to fathers. This pattern of responsibility began with Abraham, the Father of the Christian Faith. God said of Abraham, I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him (Gen 18:19). Perhaps fathers are specifically addressed because we inherited Adam’s passivity. He should have protected Eve from Satan and reinforced the truth of what God said.
Substantial research confirms that fathers and mothers discipline their children differently. Focus on the Family writes, “Dad takes an objective approach and provides his children with much needed instruction in the area of moral absolutes and the consequences of right and wrong actions. Mom, on the other hand, emphasizes compassion, empathy, relationship, and the importance of appreciating the uniqueness of each individual” (Online article, Mom and Dad Approach Discipline Differently). Both Mom and Dad are needed.

B. False Worldview #2 Teaches a Parent-Centered Approach to Children’s Discipline
In our narcissistic culture, it should not surprise us that some approaches to discipline are more about the parent’s feelings than the child’s behavior. It is reactive discipline. Here is an example. A dad on the playground says to his son, “Stop playing on the monkey bars.” But his son knows that this command means nothing. His father will not act until he has told the boy four or five times to stay off the monkey bars. So, the son continues to ignore his father’s command. The father, who is busy talking, yells at him again, but the son knows that his dad is not steamed up enough to act. Finally, the father reaches his limit and explodes,“You’ve got me really angry with you now. Get into that car.”
Instead of clarifying his instruction once, and then giving painful consequences for disobedience, this parenting approach is based upon the exasperation of the parent. Kids live up to whatever is demanded of them. The dad didn’t want to be bothered with the responsibility of being a good parent, but instead to continue his conversation. Furthermore, when my parenting is based upon how patient I feel, or how irritated or angry I am, punishment becomes random, and inconsistent, which provoke hot anger in a child. One moment, he gets away with murder, the next moment he barely steps across the line and is slammed with punishment. The dad trained his son not to obey until he started to get angry. He also made the issue HIS anger instead of the son’s disobedience. Good parenting isn’t rooted in how a parent FEELS but how a child BEHAVES. In fact, good parenting makes sure that the child understands that painful consequences for his misbehavior are NOT personal and do not interfere with the parent’s love for him.
Biblical View #2: Disciplining Children Is Part of a Training Plan for the Child. Paul Writes, Fathers, Do Not Provoke Your Children to Anger, but Bring Them Up in the Discipline and Instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4)

Here are four wrong approaches to discipline that provoke anger: 1) Inconsistent discipline, as we’ve seen. Consistent discipline trains a child to know what the boundaries are because the parents have thought them through ahead of time. It is not a seat-of-the-pants, reactive discipline. 2) Discipline that attacks a child’s character using the words, you always or you never instead of correcting behavior provokes anger. 3) Disciplining a child in public will wound his spirit. 4) Discipline that is more frequent than praise wounds our child, also provoking anger. Studies show that parents use critical words ten times more than they use words to praise their children. Mostly correction with little or no affirmation CRUSHES kids’ spirits and can lead to a rebellion.
In context, as Ephesians 6:4 continues, Paul implies that the alternative to provoking anger in our children is to exercise discipline in connection with the rest of the training plan for the child. Paul describes the plan: 1) bring them up: Dads are NOT to watch their children grow up but to actively raise them with intentionality 2) in the discipline: This Greek word is PAIDEA, from which we get pediatric. It means using consequences to train children. A father’s punishing authority is never to be used selfishly, or reflexively, but as part of a TRAINING plan. Paul continues, 3) and instruction (of the Lord): Instruction, means literally “to put into the mind.” This requires a plan for what biblical truths, godly qualities, and characteristics of Jesus we plan to impart to our kids.

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Actually Becoming Partakers of the Divine Nature

Some examples of the way that the self-discipline of choosing the right perspective empowers godly character. Forgiveness: refusing to demand that another person treat me perfectly when God has forgiven a thousand times more imperfections in me. Humility: recognizing that God and others are actually the ones responsible for the achievements in my life. Contentment: realizing that God has already provided everything I need for my present happiness. Patience: realizing that others’ imperfections that inconvenience me provide the opportunity to show them Christ-like unconditional love.

It has been said, probably mostly in the manufacturing world, that imitation is the highest form of flattery. I think there is truth in that statement—at least when it comes to how we pattern our life. The highest of all compliments to another is probably having a passion to be like him or her. When it comes to thanking Jesus for his unfathomable grace and love for me, I’m not sure anything would mean more to him than passionately seeking to BE LIKE HIM. This episode is the third in our study of the astonishing first chapter of 2nd Peter in which God tells us that his divine power makes it possible for us to do that very thing–become partakers of his divine nature, escaping the corruption of our sinful desires. Today, we examine step 3 for accessing that divine power.
Let’s review what we have seen in this text, Peter 1:3-8, so far. We noted last week that this 3-step process of becoming Christ-like, ends with the promise that continuing this process of growing into Christ-like character guarantees that our lives in Christ will NOT BE ineffective or unfruitful. Verse 8: For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being INEFFECTIVE or UNFRUITFUL in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We noted that Peter explains this three-step process beginning in verse 3: His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the KNOWLEDGE of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. Step #1 in being transformed into the likeness of Christ is KNOWING him well, personally, gazing upon his gory and excellence. Paul sends us the same message about how we are transformed writing, And we all…. BEHOLDING the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Cor 3:18).
Last week, we examined step #2 in this process of accessing the power of the Holy Spirit to become Christ-like. Verse 4: by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, SO THAT THROUGH THEM you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Why are God’s great and precious promises a key to a Jesus-like heart? Perhaps it is because our self-centered preoccupations, compulsions, fears, and anxieties so take over our hearts that they push the Christ-like heart commitment to love God and others to the side. However, when I can transfer all those self-centered preoccupations to God, knowing he will take care of whatever I fear or worry about, I am emotionally free to focus on loving—God and others. For example, if my heart is filled with anxiety over whether I have the money to pay my mortgage, I will not be able to concentrate on listening well or notice another’s needs. I am too preoccupied with worry. But claiming God’s promise in Phil 4:19, My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus sets my heart free to focus on others.
So, step #1 in this pathway to Christ-like heart attitudes is abiding in Christ, the Vine, walking with him and being transformed as we see his glory and moral excellence. Step #2 in this pathway to Christ-like attitudes is walking daily by faith—trusting in his great and precious promises to provide all we need. Today we come to step #3: Verse 5: MAKE EVERY EFFORT to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control, with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. Step #3 in this pathway to Christ-like heart attitudes is to be intentional about building Christ-like character. That is what Peter commands. Make every effort to build a golden chain of virtues.
Let’s look at this list of virtues.
Faith
The beginning virtue, FAITH, refers back to step 2–living daily by claiming the promises of God. The foundation of Peter’s golden chain is trusting God’s promises, which frees our hearts to be OTHER-focused instead of SELF-focused. Escaping from desires ruling my heart that exhibit preoccupation with ourselves is only possible by trusting Jesus to worry about all those concerns SO WE DON’T HAVE TO. Let’s consider how this works.

If the fear of being rejected is dominating my heart, I will not be sensitive to the other’s needs to be affirmed and valued, but unconsciously maneuver to make sure I am seen in the best light. However, if the truth of Zephaniah 3:17 captures my heart, reassuring me that I am deeply loved by God, such confidence will drive out my self-centered need to feel valuable, empowering me to love others well by affirming THEM. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
If my heart entertains secret doubts about God’s goodness, I will not want to come into his presence. Hebrews 11:6 says, Whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. But if I claim Ps 34:10, I will run to God. Even the young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
If God has ordained circumstances that are painful for me, filling my heart with doubts about his love, rebellion may creep into my heart. But if I claim God’s promise in Rom 8:31-32, rebellion flees from my heart (momentarily)! If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Then my heart is free to love God in his love language, “If you love me keep my commandments” (Jn 14:5).
If the fear of being alone overpowers my heart, I will easily compromise my moral convictions to fit in. The potential pain of being left out drives me. But my heart is freed from this fear when I lean upon Is 41:10. Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my right hand. I can take a stand for righteousness that will also help others in the room do what is right.
When my heart is empty and I feel unsatisfied, like trying to follow Jesus is not worth it, discontent, and envy of others can take over. But when I lean on the truth of Psalm 37:4, Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart, my heart is free to take my empty tank to God to fill.
When I am at the end of my rope, having asked God over and over to change a situation which causes a lot of pain but he refuses to do so, distrust can take over my heart. In such moments, I need to rely upon verses like, I Pet 5:7, You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon him, for you are his personal concern.

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Untapped Spiritual Power

Our master has granted to us a reservoir of spiritual power to fulfill our calling to overcome our sinful attitudes and partake of Jesus’ glory and moral excellence. But we are the ones who must step into that battle and unleash that power. WE must respond to Jesus’ call to become like him. To do so is the path to the greatest possible fulfillment in life.

Author, David Murrow, in his book, Why Men Hate Going to Church, observed that Jesus demonstrated the pattern of a man on a mission. He writes.
“Jesus had a vision. He called it the kingdom of God. It was huge. It involved nothing less than a re-creation of the world, one person at a time. And we are His partners in this task. This vision was the focus of his entire life. Everything about his life was tied up in this vision. This vision is what kept him focused on his mission. It was the reason he lived and died” (Why Men Hate Going to Church).
As followers of Jesus, we have joined his mission—to restore rightness to every square inch of planet earth, or as Jesus put it, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Spreading the kingdom of righteousness begins with the loyalties of my own heart; I am called TO CHRIST to enjoy a love relationship with him. Spreading the kingdom then moves outwardly to encompass my heart attitudes; I am then called TO BECOME LIKE CHRIST. The reign of King Jesus over my heart attitudes expels wrong attitudes. Paul explains this part of the Christ-follower’s mission when he said to the church at Ephesus, “You’ve been taught to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  
Great men, in the eyes of Jesus, are those who fight the sinful attitudes of their hearts, self-centeredness, pride, resentment, lust, selfishness, impurity, rivalry, idolatry, greed, envy, selfish anger, laziness, lack of love for others. They surrender in humility to God’s reclamation project of re-making them into the toughness of character that Jesus showed. They channel their masculine aggression towards overpowering the dark attitudes of their fallen hearts. This episode explores what the Apostle, Peter, taught about how to unleash the power God has provided to overcome the selfish attitudes and wrong desires of our hearts.
To overcome the wrong attitudes and desires that arise from our sinful nature, we need spiritual power. In fact, we need the mightiest power there is since the greatest power in the world is the power to overcome evil. Today, we begin a new November series, Becoming Men Who Exhibit the Toughness of Jesus on the Inside, based upon 2 Peter 1:3-8. Let’s explore what Peter said about accessing that power.
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let’s dig into this amazing passage that tells us how to access the unlimited power God has provided us for winning this battle over our heart attitudes. Verse 3:
His divine power.
Jesus located sin in the human heart. The message of Christianity is that only Christ, God himself come in the flesh, could defeat evil, and dethrone it from its control over the human heart. The summary message of Paul’s great theological tome, Romans is that righteousness is from God (1:16-17, 3:21-22). Righteousness from God not only saves us from the penalty of sin (justification) and saves us ultimately from the presence of sin (glorification), righteousness from God also saves us right now from the power of sin (sanctification). This word, power, is DUNAMIS, from which we get dynamite.
Trusting Christ’s power to overcome wrong attitudes is described by another Apostle, Paul. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me (Gal 2:20). The relentless battle against our sinful attitudes requires a constant supply of spiritual might that is found only in Christ’s resurrection defeat of evil and its consequences. Just as faith is trusting God to impute Christ’s righteousness to us so that we are justified, faith is trusting God to impart Christ’s moral power to have right attitudes, i.e.be sanctified.
Has granted to us all things.
The grammatical structure of the Greek sentence begins with the word all things, putting the emphasis on the sufficiency of this power source. Years ago, the manufacturers of the infamous Rolls Royce refused to identify the exact horsepower of the engine. They simply listed it as adequate. The power over sin granted to us is adequate to get the job done.
The word translated granted is DOREOMAI, which literally means “freely given as a present” This word is not the common word for give but puts the emphasis on free gift, gratis, without payment. The verb tense, “has granted,” implies that the past act of granting continues its effect to the present day and is thus to continue. Jesus paid a high price for us to have this power to overcome sinful attitudes. Peter had written in his first letter, You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Pet 1:18-19).  Having paid such a high price, our master wants us to unleash this untapped spiritual power.
That pertain to life.
Jesus said that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. The power, which is in view here, is the power for restoration to the life God intended. The wage of sinful heart attitudes is always death. Paul urges believers to never doubt that truth though they may not see the destructive consequences of sinful attitudes.  Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Gal 6:7). The biblical concept of eternal life is not just existence that begins after we die and continues forever. It is the quality of life that begins in this world when it is partially restored by the power of Christ to what it was created to be, before the fall, which and continues into eternity. This high-quality, abundant life is described by David in Psalm 63:
Because your steadfast love is better than life my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy (vs 3-7).
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The LGBTQ+ Appeal: A Perfect Storm for Gen Z

A seismic shift has taken place in teen culture in just fifteen years. Before 2007, gender dysphoria was so rare among girls that there was no extant scientific literature on teen girls having gender identity disorders. None. In the last fifteen years over three hundred gender clinics have opened in America. In the UK, from 2010-2020, the Tavistock gender clinic saw a 4,400 percent increase in teen girls presenting for gender transformation treatment.

Eva, the mother of a 12-year-old Christian girl was at a church luncheon when she received an email from her daughter, Grace, declaring, “Mom and Dad, I need to tell you I’m not actually a girl. My pronouns are they/them.” Eva hadn’t seen this coming for several reasons. First, a few months before, Grace had shared on social media her belief that God created people male and female. She seemed to be resisting peer pressure. Second, Eva knew that kids who identify as trans usually have numerous comorbidities, and trouble fitting in, which Grace did not. The third reason Eva was blind-sided was that she and her husband were naïve about the impact that social media was having on her daughter’s generation, Gen Z.
Here is what the data show:

In the generation born between 1965 and 1980 (Gen X) one in twenty identifies as LGBTQ+.
In the next generation, born from 1981 to 1996 (Millennials), one in ten identifies as LGBTQ+.
In the current generation of teens and twenty-somethings born, between 1997 and 2013, one in five identifies as LGBTQ+.
In addition, forty percent of millennials and Gen Z identify as religious; so, this explosion is not limited to just secular kids.[i]

These numbers constitute an unprecedented transformation of teen culture in the last fifteen years.
Another study of Gen Z, this one conducted by Dr. Allison McFarland of Bethel College, may give some valuable clues to understand why Gen Z teens and young adults are so attracted to the LGBTQ+ message.
In Dr. McFarland’s lectures on Gen Z[2], she identifies the highest values of those who comprise this age group. At the top of the list is authenticity. Let’s consider the characteristics of the largely pubescent girls who come out as trans. They don’t fit their own or their parents’ stereotype of femininity; they are not girly girls. They don’t fit in with the cheerleaders and homecoming princesses. They don’t like their developing curves, feeling extremely uncomfortable with their body’s transition to womanhood. These pubescent girls coming out as trans are fleeing womanhood, more than they are pursuing manhood. They don’t start lifting weights. If they have tats, they are likely to be butterflies or flowers.
As the first generation to grow up with screens always in front of them, Gen Z teens have been exposed to more forms of broken sexuality than any generation in history. No wonder so many girls want nothing to do with becoming sexually attractive to a male. Very simply these girls don’t want to become women. So, the most authentic thing they can do, in their minds, is to admit all of this and join other girls who feel the same way by coming out as trans.
McFarland points out that the second highest value of Gen Z is finding a place where everyone is welcome. Think about the appeal of the LGBTQ+ community to a group of teens for whom acceptance is the highest value. In the LGBTQ+ world, everyone is welcome. Even Grace, who had posted that God made people male or female, was welcomed with open arms to her school’s Gender and Sexualities Alliance club. Acceptance is the club’s highest value. Nobody bullies the socially awkward there. Nobody tells them same-sex attraction is wrong. Nobody says homosexual sex is a sin. Nobody tells trans kids that transgender identity is a delusion. Approval of every form of sexuality is the highest value of the LGBTQ+ movement. What teen does not crave unconditional acceptance, and a non-judgmental place to belong?
This correspondence between the highest two values of Gen Z members and what the LGBTQ+ community offers is taking place in the midst of another, unprecedented, historic phenomenon—the explosion of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria among teen girls. ROGD (coined by Dr. Lisa Littman) is a sudden, dramatic spike in transgender identification among teen girls who had no childhood history of gender dysphoria at all.
Dr. Littman conducted extensive research with 256 families in which a child had come out as transgender. Two patterns stood out. First, she discovered that transgender identification was sharply clustered in friend groups revealing that it spread through social contagion. “Parents describe that the onset of gender dysphoria seemed to occur in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all the friends have become gender-dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe.”[3]
The second pattern that she identified was that the clear majority (65 percent) of the adolescent girls who had discovered transgender identity in adolescence—“out of the blue”—had done so after a period of prolonged social media immersion. This pattern was also confirmed by the parents. “Parents also report that their children exhibited an increase in social media/Internet use prior to disclosure of transgender identity.”[4]
A seismic shift has taken place in teen culture in just fifteen years. Before 2007, gender dysphoria was so rare among girls that there was no extant scientific literature on teen girls having gender identity disorders. None. In the last fifteen years over three hundred gender clinics have opened in America. In the UK, from 2010-2020, the Tavistock gender clinic saw a 4,400 percent increase in teen girls presenting for gender transformation treatment.[5] Thousands of our children are being urged down the path that begins with taking puberty blocking drugs such as Lupron, which is used to chemically castrate sex offenders and has never been approved by the FDA for use with teens to arrest puberty. Ninety-nine percent of those who begin taking puberty blockers go on to take cross gender hormones, which causes sterility one hundred percent of the time. Many go on to permanently disfigure themselves through “top” or “bottom” surgery.
The impact of the LGBTQ+ destructive, fractured worldview of sexual personhood is so recent it is only just beginning to be felt. Yet its impact on the mental health of our children is palpable. The Center for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey of High School Students released these statistics in 2021:

Those experiencing persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness: heterosexual students 35%, LGBTQ+ students 69%
Those seriously considering suicide: heterosexual students 15%, LGBTQ+ students 45%,
Actual suicide attempts: heterosexual students 6%, LGBTQ+ students 22%.[6]

Three Ways to Empower Our Children to Safely Weather the Storm

We must get equipped ourselves: This cultural typhoon is not going away any time soon. Our children need us to become equipped to help them weather it, without drowning. Gender theory has already caused many kids raised in Christian homes to abandon their faith, in addition to destroying their bodies.

Here is a list of PCA-friendly resources available to enable parents and church leaders to get equipped for this leadership responsibility.

Anchoring Your Child to God’s Truth in a Gender-Confused Culture, published by the PCA Committee for Discipleship Ministries—seeks to equip parents to conduct a preemptive strike against gender theory, by helping parents guide their kids to celebrate God’s perfect gender design of them as male or female.
Shattered Dreams, New Hope: First Aid for Parents Whose Son or Daughter Has Embraced an LGBTQ+ Identityis an excellent resource from Harvest USA, begun out of Tenth Pres, Philadelphia. It is written for Christian parents whose child identifies as LGBTQ+ and does not desire to live in accordance with God’s Word. It is based upon the CCEF’s counseling model. This parents’ curriculum is available as a FREE digital download at harvestusa.org.
A Biblical Response to Gender Confusion and Transgenderism: Seminar Presented to Potomac Presbytery. After some presbytery members used my book, Our Daughters and the Transgender Craze with their teens, Potomac Presbytery asked me to lead this seminar this past March. Afterwards the brothers urged me to make this material available on video for the whole denomination, which we have done. The free videos are Understanding Gender Theory and Its Origin, Understanding Today’s Transgender Craze, Countering Radical Gender Ideology, and a video for teens to watch with their parents or youth leaders, Biblical Worldview of Sexuality.
Gospel Coalition article, Transformation of a Transgender Teen, by Sarah Zylstra. This article tells the true story of Grace, mentioned at the beginning of this article and what her parents did to win her back to Christ and the biblical worldview of gender and sexuality.

We must speak into the culture. Proverbs 18:17 gives a clear picture of what is happening in gender discussions around the country: “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” To the ears of many, gender theory, when it is first heard seems inclusive, loving, fair, and right because no one comes and examines it. Who will be the salt to retard the culture’s decaying ideas about gender if Christians don’t speak up? Who will shed the light of truth about children being pushed down a destructive path of gender transition if Christians don’t sound the alarm? In some states, twelve-year-olds are allowed, without parental consent, to make medical decisions that permanently mutilate their bodies while at the same time, science is increasingly insisting that the adolescent brain is not fully formed until age twenty-five.

Urgency about this matter, however, must not lead to a combative attitude towards those in the LGBTQ+ community or those advocating for gender theory. They are not the enemy; they are held captive by the enemy, the Evil One. Here are the words of a Christian speaking at a public meeting to a school board that was being influenced by gender theory—an example that we ought NOT to follow:
“You are all child abusers. You prey upon impressionable children and then indoctrinate them into your insane ideological cult—a cult which holds many fanatical views but none so deranged as the idea that boys are girls and girls are boys….You are poison. You are predators. I can see why you try to stop us from speaking. You know that your ideas are indefensible. You silence the other side because you have no argument. You can only hide under your beds like gutless cowards hoping we shut up and go away.”
In sharp contrast to such hostility, Scripture says, “The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness” (Prov. 16:21), and “The heart of the wise instructs his mouth and adds persuasiveness to his lips” (Prov. 16:23). One of the best ways to be polite, strategic, and winsome is to use questions. Here are some attempts at a wiser approach.
Example #1: So you’re having a conversation with someone and they tell you that sex is not a fixed part of a person’s identity, but something that is merely assigned at birth. They go on to say that since sex is assigned at birth, it can be reassigned later if the persons discovers that a mistake was made. What would you say?
First, A person’s sex is acknowledged, not assigned. There are many things doctors learn about a baby when it is born like height, weight, and blood type. Those things aren’t assigned, they are acknowledged. Other things are assigned at birth, like a name. Babies are assigned names exclusively on the preferences of the parents. Changing a name before, during, or after birth has no real impact on the person because it is not a biological part of their identity. So if we know that some things are acknowledged and some things are assigned, what category does a baby’s sex fall into? Is it more like getting a name from your parents or more like learning your blood type from the doctor? I think the answer to that is pretty clear.
Which leads to the second point, Sex is determined by our reproductive system. In most cases, humans are born with two chromosomes, either XX or XY. Those chromosomes lead to the creation of reproductive organs, which create sex hormones, which in turn create genitalia and secondary sex characteristics, like body hair, bone structure, or an Adam’s apple. Within our species, there are only two reproductive systems, male and female. While they clearly matter for reproduction, that’s not the only reason they matter.
Men and women differ in how their brains operate, how they solve problems, what diseases they are susceptible to, and so much more. “But some people are intersex!” you say. This is all true.
Which leads to the third point. Disorders of sexual development don’t create new categories of sex. Not every person’s reproductive system develops neatly along a male or female path, but that does not mean they are not male or female. Some people are born without limbs, others are born blind. Disorders of sexual development are not evidence of a new sex category any more than disorders of the cardiac or respiratory systems are evidence of new kinds of hearts or lungs. A baby born with ambiguous genitalia is not evidence of a new sex within the human species. How do we know this? Because the disorders of sexual development do not create a new chromosome, a new sex hormone, or a new type of genitalia. They have not replaced the need for male or female nor have they found a new way to reproduce. They are simply evidence that sometimes our bodies don’t develop or function as designed.
But let’s be honest, we’re all evidence if that in our own way aren’t we? The truth is, neither science, nor logic support the idea that sex is assigned at birth. So next time someone tells you it is, here are the three things to remember.

A person’s sex is acknowledged, not assigned. It’s much more like blood type than a name.
Sex is determined by our reproductive system, not our feelings.
Disorders of sexual development don’t prove that there are many different sexes. They just prove that we’re imperfect; which we all kind of knew anyway.

You’re having a conversation with a teenager. He says, “Gender is not a fixed part of a person’s identity, but something that is merely assigned at birth.”
What makes you say that?
That is what my social studies teacher said.
So, use your imagination. Picture the birthing room right after a baby comes out. The doctor cries out, “it’s a boy.” What makes the doctor say that?
I guess the doctor looks at the baby’s privates.
Right, so did they arbitrarily “assign” it’s gender or “observe” its gender?
I guess they observed it.
So, is gender “arbitrarily assigned at birth” or is it a biological reality “discovered at birth?”
You’ve got me.
Example # 2: Someone says, “Transgender athletes should be able to participate on whatever sports teams they choose. Girls’ sports should be open to anyone who says they are female.”
May I ask a question?
Sure.
Do you know why men’s and women’s athletic competitions have long been separate?
Not really.
Guess how much more muscle mass the average man has than a woman?
Ten percent?
Thirty-six percent. Men’s bones are thicker and denser. Conversely, women have lower lung volume and lower airflow capacity because they have smaller lungs and airway diameter.
Okay I’ll accept your generalizations.
Did you know that the International Olympic Committee has a geneticist from UCLA to consult about male and female differences?
No, I didn’t know that?
His name is Eric Villian, and he says the differences in male and female bodies make a ten to twelve percent difference in male and female athletic performance. So, if a male who claims to be trans, is allowed to compete against women, who is being treated unfairly?[7]

We must start fighting for our children in prayer. I realize that there are currently millions of different, vital, prayer efforts requiring the church’s attention for the kingdom of Christ to go forward. Yet, at this cultural moment, can we ignore what is happening to the children of our land inside and outside the church? I’m reminded of Jesus view of the importance of children. Matthew recounts,

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea…See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven (18:5ff).
Although my ministry’s primary focus is men’s ministry, we are sponsoring a five-month intentional prayer campaign until Easter 2024 entitled, Protect Our Children from Gender Confusion. We would love to have as many prayer warriors as possible join this effort. It is doubtful that much progress will be made by today’s church to combat gender theory’s spread without using spiritual weapons. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:4-5).
At this cultural moment the perfect storm’s winds are howling furiously. Our precious children can’t weather this typhoon alone.
Dr. Gary Yagel served over ten years as the Committee for Discipleship Ministries’ Men’s Ministry Consultant. He is the author of Anchoring Your Child to God’s Truth in a Gender-Confused Culture published by CDM and the follow up booklet, Our Daughters and the Transgender Craze also available in the PCA bookstore. He is currently the executive director of Forging Bonds of Brotherhood and producer of the weekly podcast, Mission Focused Men for Christ.  

[1] Sarah Zylstra, “Transformation of a Transgender Teen,” The Gospel Coalition, July 6, 2022.
[2] See notes from Dr. McFarland lecture, https://calvaryheadmaster.wordpress.com/2023/01/17/trying-to-reach-gen-z/.
[3] Abigail Shrier, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, (Regnery Publishing, Washington, D.C.) p.25.
[4] Ibid p. 38.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Data taken from “Youth Risk Data Survey 2011-2021,” Published by US Government CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/YRBS_Data-Summary-Trends_Report2023_508.pdf, p. 60-67.
[7] The examples are variations of the thoughtful use of questions demonstrated by the Colson Center’s What Would You Say website, https://whatwouldyousay.org/.
 
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Why Fight for Truth in a World that Hates IT & US

When Jesus says to us, Because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you (John 15:19), he is NOT saying that Christians are universally hated by NON-CHRISTIANS. We are hated by the City of Man—by the ruler of this world, by the system of rebellion, humanism, and sin that both pulls on our heart strings to lure us and seeks to attack and destroy us. The average non-Christian is lost, hurting, and open to the love of Christ, like the woman at the well of Samaria.

A.  Reason #1. God’s very first command in the whole Bible to humans is Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Gen 1:28). As image bearers of God, Adam and Eve are created to be kings and queens over earth. They are to discover and unleash the potential God has put into planet earth, causing the earth and those humans God placed on the earth to flourish. They were to build culture; they were to turn the untamed garden into a beautiful, garden city. Out of love for God—allegiance to him—they were to rule over this process as his vice-regents, shaping that culture to please Him, according to the moral law of God written on their heart. God’s moral will on earth was to be done as it is in heaven. This command to the first humans was never abrogated by Jesus. Jesus did not undo this command but built upon it.
B. Reason #2. The second reason cultural withdrawal is wrong is that it is based on a misunderstanding of the term, world, in Scripture. Here is the background behind this term. When Adam and Eve joined Satan’s alliance to rebel against the High King, they unleashed the power of Satan, sin, and death upon kingdom earth. Adam and Eve’s kingdom has now become a realm where two loves, two allegiances compete. The great theologian, Augustine, describes human existence since the fall as two kingdoms existing side by side, which he likens to cities. He says, Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self (City of God.) The biblical term for this “earthly city” is the world.
This is very confusing because world can mean, “the earth with its inhabitants and all things upon it.” Scripture often uses “world” with this meaning, e.g. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the  world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God (Ps 90:2). But Webster also tells us world can mean, “the concerns of the earth and its affairs as distinguished from heaven and the life to come.” So, “the world” can refer to a system of thinking, a way of life that contrasts to the way of life in heaven. In other words, the term, world is used in Scripture BOTH for the sphere of human life on earth where the clash of two kingdoms takes place and as a synonym for one of the two kingdoms, i.e. the kingdom of darkness, i.e. the City of Man, the attitudes and perspective of sin—to a way of life shaped by the love of self to the contempt of God in contrast to a way of life shaped by the love of God, to the contempt of self.
This second definition of world as contrasting with the righteous life of heaven is the meaning of the world in John 15:19: Because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. In this verse, the term, world, DOES NOT REFER TO OUR CURRENT CULTURE but to the kingdom of darkness at work in the culture. Again, the world does NOT refer to the non-Christians around me or the Internet, but the system of thinking—the worldview, the values of the lost world, the thinking and behavior that contrast to the righteous way of life in heaven. Here are some examples of this frequent use of the term, world, in the NT.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:1).
He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world” (John 8:23).
Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out (John 12:31).
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal 6:4)
You once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph 2:2).
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27).
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19).

Withdrawal from the culture is wrong because it is based on a misunderstanding of the term, world. We are to turn our backs on the enticement and values of the fallen world but not on the sphere of human existence where this battle is taking place (culture) or on those being harmed by Satan and sin’s attacks.
C. Reason #3.  Jesus reaffirmed God’s command to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 to shape culture, subduing the earth in a way that pleases the High King when he calls his followers to make disciples of the nations. The Great Commission begins with the words, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”   After sin entered the world, humans only have the power to fulfill this creation calling in the power of Christ, the Second Adam who at the cross redeemed Adam’s kingdom from its slavery to Satan Sin, and Death. In fact, Jesus taught his followers that recovering and pursuing this calling is their highest priority. He commanded “seek first the kingdom of God and his rightness-for-creation” (which is what the term righteousness means). We are called to seek the rule of Christ’s moral law in every sphere of life—starting with our own hearts, and accomplishing Christ’s agenda in our heart attitudes, marriages, families, workplaces, neighborhoods, and nation.
We do this, however, not by military conquest, i.e. forcing that law on citizens (which is called theonomy). Christianity’s view of kingdom expansion is the opposite of radical Islam’s pursuit of the Caliphate, which practices jihad in slaughtering religious opponents and forcing Sharia Law on those who survive. Rather, Jesus repudiated the use of force, saying My kingdom is not of this world, and teaching that his kingdom grows not through political coercion but through Christians’ influence in the culture as salt, light, and leaven which spreads over the earth. Tuesday’s election is an opportunity for us to demonstrate that influence through voting, although our calling to shape culture in a fallen world goes way beyond voting.
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Stop Fatherhood from Being Canceled

Today’s Christians have been armed with the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God to wield in the battle over the gender ideas that will shape the rising generation in our nation, churches, and homes. But many Christian men are leaving their swords in their sheaths. Please, don’t do that. A lot of children and grandchildren are depending upon us to fight this battle for them.   

Today we begin our June series, “How God Uses Imperfect Dads to Impact Their Kid’s Lives,” with a look at the responsibility of Christian men to protect fatherhood itself in our culture by speaking out against the erosion of the biblical worldview of gender. What do you think of this statement? All that is necessary for woke forces to “cancel” fatherhood today is for Christian men to say nothing to stop them. The widespread attack in our culture upon gender roles is, at its core, an assault upon God’s creation design of the institution of the family–one man and one woman bound in the covenant of marriage to be the family where human children flourish.
The National Fatherhood Initiative, along with men’s ministries like Iron Sharpens Iron, have named June, National Fatherhood Month. A Google search also reveals other jurisdictions such as Fairfax County, VA, which have named June, Fatherhood Awareness Month. During a month when every Christian cringes at the promotion of the destructive LGBTQ+ life by naming June “Gay Pride Month,” Christians now have a gracious way to say, “I believe the gay life is destructive; I am celebrating National Fatherhood Month instead.” Will Christians be as passionate about promoting fatherhood this month as LGBTQ+ advocates are about promoting gay pride? This episode examines why our words promoting fatherhood need to be heard by our children, grandchildren, neighbors, and work associates. It further suggests winsome ways to present the biblical worldview that fatherhood is vital for human flourishing.
God has entrusted his revelation to his people so that we can enrich the rest of culture with its wisdom. Abraham, the father of both the Old Covenant and New Covenant people of God was chosen, with his posterity, to be a blessing to the nations (Gen 12:2-3). Jesus taught that his followers must shine our lights into the darkest corners of human existence, spreading truth about flourishing throughout the earth (Mt 5:14). The most important part of that light is revealing the truth that life is in Jesus—but that is not our only message. In God’s good plan for earth, the salt of the biblical worldview of sexuality, his design of gender and the family, injustice, and oppression, must be expressed by God’s people to preserve the earth, holding back the decay of sin (Matt 5:13): Our biblical worldview must spread like leaven throughout culture if we are to be faithful kingdom members (Mt 13:33).
Considering this clear calling, the blinding speed of gender theory’s spread throughout our culture in the last decade raises the question, “are Christians speaking up about gender issues? Or are we too afraid of being labeled patriarchal oppressors, gay bashers or transphobes?” Some Christian writers have flat out said that Christians who say nothing to stand against the gender blending forces in our culture are cowards. It is not my place to judge other Christian leaders, but the words of Martin Luther seem to have great significance today. He wrote,
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are attacking at that moment, I am not being faithful to Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all battlefields, is mere flight and disgrace, if he flinches at that point. (Who Speaks for God, Chuck Colson).
The Biblical Worldview of Fatherhood
A. God himself is called God the Father. Names matter in Scripture. God did not call himself God the Mother. Jesus repeatedly called the first person of the Trinity, Father, teaching his disciples to do the same (Mt 6:9). When Jesus gave his marching orders to his church, he commanded, Go and make disciples, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of The Holy Spirit. There is something about the very nature of God that is described by the word, father.
B. Male/female distinctions matter to God. In God’s revelation to us about our own creation, God devotes five verses in Genesis 1 to emphasizing that Adam and Eve equally share the dignity of being God’s image bearers. In Genesis 2, God devotes twenty-one verses to showing how differently he created Adam and Eve. In a perfectly parallel structure, God emphasizes how differently he created male and female to be.
Adam is: 1) made FOR the ground–the garden is described as needing a gardener, 2:5, 2) made FROM the ground–2:7, 3) given a name that means ground–2:20, 4) called to work the ground–2:15. 5) When he sins, what is cursed is the ground (3:17). Eve is: 1) made FOR the man–to provide companionship–2:18), 2) made FROM the man–2:21, 3) given the name woman ISHA because she came out of the man ISH–2:23, 4) called to be a partner with the man–2:20. 5) When she sins, what is cursed is her relationship with the man and their kids–3:16.
Why, in the creation story, would God devote just five verses to Adam and Eve’s identical roles but four times that number, (twenty-one) to their differences? The only answer I can come up with is because the differences are important. For four -thousand years of history, these differences have been recognized, and they have been fully substantiated by science. It is only OUR CULTURE, because of the influence of the LGBTQ+ movement, that attempts to deny the obvious male/female differences in design. Our children, grandchildren, neighbors and work associates need to hear how important male/female differences are in the mind of God.
C. After our race’s fall, the paradigm for our restored personal relationship with God is calling him Abba. Paul observes, For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” All believers have the privilege of calling the God of the universe, Abba! Father! Paul does not say that we can now call God Mama.
D. In God’s book, the Bible, history does not begin with government, or even the church; it begins with a wedding—that of Adam and Eve. And it ends with a wedding—the marriage super of the Lamb. The institution that God chose for perpetuating the human race is the family, where the child is loved by both a father and a mother. Creation itself tells us that the nuclear family is not just a social construct. The biological fact that conception takes place in the context of husband and wife making love speaks volumes about the best environment for a child to be nurtured to healthy adulthood. In God’s obvious creation design, for a child to fully thrive, he needs a family built on mom and dad’s love for each other, not a village. Radical extremists on both the right (Hitler) and the left (Mao Tse Tung) claimed that children belonged to the state, not to parents.
E. Through Paul, God spells out the way he wants the human family structured. Paul defines the different responsibilities of wives, then husbands, then children—commanding them to obey their parents. So, we might expect the next group Paul addresses to be parents; but it is not. How about mothers? No. It is striking that when Paul addresses household responsibilities, especially the training of the children, he doesn’t mention mothers but gives commands to fathers. This pattern of responsibility began with Abraham, the Father of the Christian Faith.
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Thinking Biblically About the Poor

Be AGITATED, GRIEVED, MOVED by the way poverty assaults the dignity of every poor image-bearer of God. We cannot be Christ-like and be apathetic. We cannot be Jesus-followers and be passive about the plight of the poor. Cherishing every human being is required of anyone who claims to love God—because there is a direct link between loving God and loving his image bearers.

After loving the Lord, Himself, with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, the Christian’s second responsibility is to love our neighbor as ourselves. When asked what this command meant for our everyday living, Jesus told the outrageous story of a man walking down the dangerous road between Jerusalem and Jericho, being attacked, robbed, and left for dead but how the good Samaritan, at risk to his own safety, stopped, bandaged his wounds, transported him on his own donkey to an inn where he spent the rest of the day caring for him. The next day he left a considerable sum of money with the inn keeper to continue to care for the wounded man, saying, “if this is not enough, I will cover the extra costs when I return.” Commenting on this passage, author/pastor Tim Keller writes:
“Jesus commands us to provide shelter, finances, medical care, and friendship to people who lack them. We have nothing less than an order from our Lord in the most categorical of terms, ‘Go and do likewise.’ Our paradigm is the Samaritan who risked his safety, destroyed his schedule, and became dirty and bloody through personal involvement with a needy person of another race and social class. Are we as Christians obeying this command personally? Are we as a church obeying it corporately?” (Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road). This episode seeks to look at poverty through a biblical lens, understanding it’s causes, misguided attempts to solve it, and especially what fulfilling our responsibility to care for the poor looks like.
God’s Design for Mankind to Flourish Econimically
As we saw in the first episode in this series, God’s design to provide humans with the sustenance they need to flourish was not just a lush garden full of fruit trees; it was a plan for them to “subdue” the earth. The command “to subdue” implies that, although all that God made is good, it is, to some degree, underdeveloped. God left creation with deep untapped potential for cultivation that humans are to unlock through our labor. Tim Keller elaborates:
We are not to relate to the world as park rangers, whose job is not to change their space but preserve things as they are. Nor are we to “pave over the garden” of the created world to make a parking lot. No, we are to be gardeners who take an active stance towards their charge. They do not leave the land as it is. They rearrange it to make it more fruitful, to draw the potentialities for growth and development out of the soil. They dig up the ground and rearrange it with a goal in mind: to rearrange the raw material of the garden so that it produces food, flowers, and beauty. And that is the pattern for all work. It is rearranging the raw materials of God’s creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people, in particular, thrive and flourish (Every Good Endeavor).
The development of creation’s potential is built upon and requires shalom—the OT word for harmony and flourishing in relationships. God’s design for economic flourishing as described above in Genesis 1 requires harmony in the four basic relationships of life:

Right relationship with GOD—My mission is to exercise dominion over all of life for him, out of love for him.
Right relationship with SELF—My worth and dignity are eternally assigned to me by God who made me his image bearer and equipped me with the abilities to do the good works he planned for me to do from eternity.
Right relationship with OTHERS—My responsibility is summed up in the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Right relationship with CREATION—I am to be its steward developing the potential God placed in it for God’s glory.

The Cause of Economic Poverty
In his book, Walking With the Poor, Bryant Myers describes the fundamental nature of poverty, “Poverty is the result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable. Poverty is the absence of shalom in all its meanings.” Due to the comprehensive nature of the fall, every human being is poor in the sense of not experiencing the flourishing of these four relationships in the way God intended. Every human being is suffering from a poverty of spiritual intimacy with God, a poverty of internal wholeness and emotional health within himself, a poverty of community, and a poverty of stewardship. Let’s dig deeper.
Adam and Eve were designed to be God’s image bearers, reflecting his nature as a worker and moral ruler. As moral rulers who had the law of God written on their hearts, they were to exercise dominion in a way that pleased God as culture developed and diversified. Human flourishing was the result of shalom in the four relationships of life: 1) Walking in harmony with God’s righteousness, they would have respected private ownership (theft forbidden by the 8th commandment), honest business practices (lying forbidden by the 9th commandment). 2) Experiencing pre-fall wholeness–internal peace with themselves—no sense of inferiority, insecurity, competitiveness, or envy. Sinful selfishness has not exerted itself—and their call to vocation was the call to use their talents, innovation, and resources to make products to serve others. 3) Experiencing pre-fall harmony in their horizontal relationships with each other; their hearts were not governed by greed, selfishness, cheating each other, or jealousy. 4) There was harmony in the created order. There was no poverty that had resulted from natural calamity like earthquakes, floods, or volcanoes erupting. Let’s use this lens to consider the holistic, biblical approach to alleviating poverty in our cities—restoration.
A. Overcoming the poverty of being. Only God knows how profoundly slavery and racism have crushed black men and women’s dignity. I wonder how many centuries it may take to undo such evil attacks on the self-esteem of those who bear the image of God. I’m told by those engaged in city ministry that this shattered self-esteem is linked to many outward symptoms of this brokenness:

a teen boy’s desire to prove himself a man through his sexual prowess.
a teen girl looking for love in the arms of a male who just wants sex.
a teen girl who wants to feel needed by getting pregnant and having a baby who needs her and, to some degree, loves her back.
a boy committing violence to win the respect of the others in his gang.

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God’s Wisdom: Nothing You Desire Compares with Her

Since Jesus came to restore everything broken by sin, Jesus’ teaching of kingdom life is counter intuitive. It is a picture of the godly attitudes that reflect God’s original intent for human life. These redeemed attitudes grow from recovering biblical perspective, looking at life from God’s point of view. Jesus begins each beatitude with the word, “blessed” which is the Greek word MAKARIOS. The word blessed is a bit misleading. It sounds so holy, as if this is a monk or nun’s religious way of life that pleases God but otherwise leads to human misery. But nothing could be further from the truth. It IS THE WAY OF LIFE THAT PLEASES GOD, but it does not lead to MISERY but to PRESENT FULFILLMENT. 

The parents of a sophomore college coed opened a letter from her that shocked them. It said,
Dear Mom and Dad,
Just thought I’d drop you a note to clue you in on my plans. I’ve fallen in love with a man named Jim. He quit high school after grade eleven to get married. About a year ago, he got a divorce. We’ve been “in a relationship” for two months, and plan to get married in the fall. Until then I’ve decided to move into his apartment. (I think I might be pregnant). At any rate, I dropped out of school last week, although I’d like to finish college sometime in the future.
On the next page she continued: “Mom and Dad, I just want you to know that everything I’ve written so far in this letter is false. NONE of it is true. But Mom and Dad, it IS true that I got a C- in French and flunked Math…It IS true that I’m going to need some more money.” What a brilliant girl. She made the BAD NEWS that she flunked math, got a C- in French, and was out of money sound like GOOD NEWS—she wasn’t pregnant and dropping out of school. Your perspective determines your attitude. If, as I start to cross a city street, I get shoved to the pavement and fall down tearing my suit pants, my attitude will be fury, until a second later, I see a car fly past who ran the red light in the lane I was stepping into. Then my fury becomes profound gratefulness. My attitude changed because my perspective changed. As we complete this series on developing the tough-minded attitudes that Jesus exhibited throughout his life, we realize that the key to godly attitudes is having the right perspective. The biblical term for this right perspective is wisdom. Wisdom is looking at life from Gods point of view. It is seeing how God designed life to best function. No wonder God says, “Nothing you desire compares with wisdom.”
When we look at what God says to us about the value of wisdom in just Proverbs 3, alone, it is hard to envision any way God could state his case more forcefully: Blessed is a person who finds wisdom, and one who obtains understanding. For her profit is better than the profit of silver and her produce better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire compares with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are those who hold on to her. (vs 13-18).
What could possibly be more valuable than understanding how God designed human life to work? “In fact,” says God, “the same unchangeable principles that shape human relational, emotional, and spiritual life actually existed before God designed the physical world and guided the creative process.” In Proverbs 8, wisdom personified cries out, “The Lord created me at the beginning of His way before His works of old. From eternity I was established from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. When there were no ocean depths, I was born, when there were no springs abounding with water.” Surely God’s point is that the wisdom of God for the moral, spiritual, relational world is as unchanging and certain as are the laws of nature. Imagine understanding everything about how relationships work, everything. Or everything about how the conscience works, how guilt destroys, how forgiveness frees, how the conscience suppresses the truth. Imagine knowing everything about the heart, its motivations, emotions, and the thought process. Why do we not devote ourselves to the treasure trove of God’s wisdom? Why do we not listen to the urging of God,
Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you she will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown (Prov 4:5-9).
 We Fail to Grasp How Broken Our Spiritual Vision Is
The starting point for obtaining wisdom is humility. When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but WITH THE HUMBLE IS WISDOM (Prov 11:2). Humility is recognizing my spiritual poverty. It is recognizing that my sin has darkened my understanding (Eph 4) and causes me to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1). It is agreeing with Proverbs 14:2, There is a way THAT SEEMS RIGHT to a man, but its end is the way to death. This truth is so important that God repeats it word for word in Proverbs 16:25.
True humility further leads to the “fear of the Lord.” This biblical concept is not being afraid of God; it is being afraid to break his moral law because we know we will never get away with it. The fear of the Lord is knowing that He is so weighty, so awesome, that no one gets away with sin, ever. God is not such a lightweight that He can be mocked. “Do not be deceived,” Paul wrote to the Galatians, “God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (6:7-8). It is this certainty that the laws of the moral, spiritual world are fixed which leads to wisdom. The fear of the Lord is instruction in WISDOM, and humility comes before honor. (Prov 15:33). It is the humility that says, “I must adjust to life the way God has designed it to be—which is a reflection of his unchanging moral nature.” The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil (Prov 8:13). The fear of the Lord recognizes that evil destroys. Our darkened understanding takes us down the path of destruction. Wisdom, the only corrective to a darkened understanding cries out,
I have insight; I have strength. By me kings reign and rulers decree what is just; by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly. I love those who love me, and THOSE WHO SEEK ME DILIGENTLY FIND ME. Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold…my yield than choice silver. I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice, granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries (Prov 8:14-21).
Jesus’ Wisdom Teaching:  The Beatitudes
Since Jesus came to restore everything broken by sin, Jesus’ teaching of kingdom life is counter intuitive. It is a picture of the godly attitudes that reflect God’s original intent for human life. These redeemed attitudes grow from recovering biblical perspective, looking at life from God’s point of view. Jesus begins each beatitude with the word, “blessed” which is the Greek word MAKARIOS. The word blessed is a bit misleading. It sounds so holy, as if this is a monk or nun’s religious way of life that pleases God but otherwise leads to human misery. But nothing could be further from the truth. It IS THE WAY OF LIFE THAT PLEASES GOD, but it does not lead to MISERY but to PRESENT FULFILLMENT. One NT scholar writes,
The meaning of MAKARIOS can best be seen by one particular usage of it. The Greeks always called Cyprus he makaria (the feminine form of the adjective), which means The Happy Isle.
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Needed: A Few Good Men

The spiritual fruit GOODNESS requires a commitment to 1) help others come to Christ, 2) stand against harmful practices in the culture and 3) only return good for evil. The deepest faithfulness is to our Master. It is whole-hearted allegiance. Jesus described it, And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Unswerving loyalty does not mean that we never fail. In fact, sometimes we fail because we are so exhausted trying to fight for the kingdom in our culture, that we surrendered again to temptation. But Jesus died for that sin a long time ago. Allegiance is quickly getting back into the ring and fighting even harder.

How do we become the kind of men who leave behind a good or even great legacy that matters? How can we stay focused on a destiny that will make the world a better place, bring great honor to Jesus, and great defeat to the Evil One? Scripture teaches that reaping a great destiny is the result of a process that, day-by- day builds character. As someone has said, sow a thought reap an attitude. Sow an attitude reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny. This episode is the third in our April series Building the Mental Toughness of Jesus. Today we examine two more of the fruits of the Spirit, goodness and faithfulness. Today we take another step towards building a destiny that honors our Commander in Chief.
My RTS counseling professor once remarked, “men love the heroic, but struggle with the mundane.” Perhaps that is why building Christ-like attitudes is so tough. It only happens a little at a time. Let’s look at the Scripture behind this sowing and reaping process. Sow a THOUGHT reap an ATTITUDE is the message of Rom 12:2 be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Sow an ATTITUDE reap an ACTION is taught by Jesus, when he remarks, out of the abundance of the heart a man’s mouth speaks (Lk 6:45). Sow an ACTION reap a HABIT is the principle in view when Paul challenges believers to the daily habit of putting off dirty clothes and put on clean ones: put off your old self…and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God. (Eph 4:22-24). Sowing a HABIT and reaping CHARACTER is Paul’s point in contrasting the works of the flesh to the fruit of the Spirit in Gal 5: Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, etc. Sowing CHARACTER and reaping a DESTINY is explained a few verses later in Galatians, The one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Gal 6:8). So how do we build goodness?
Goodness
The Greek word is AGATHOSUNE. It refers to what is morally pure and right in its character and therefore beneficial in its effect. This quality is the inclination to always pursue the good of others. It is similar to kindness in that its focus is on others. Kindness, however, is more about being sensitive to those around us and thoughtful in addressing their needs. GOODNESS also devotes itself to focusing on others but implies a moral awareness of what is GOOD for them—what helps them be restored to rightness. GOODNESS, as opposed to wickedness, helps others towards what is right, wholesome, and, therefore, beneficial, as opposed to evil, which always harms. Countless times we are urged to pursue what is good.

Rom 12:9 Abhor what is evil; cling to what is GOOD.
Gal 6:10 Let us not grow weary of DOING GOOD, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us DO GOOD to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
1 Thess 5:15 See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to DO GOOD to one another and to everyone.
Romans 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with GOOD.

Goodness Applied
This work of the Holy Spirit in us generates a posture towards others of always seeking what is best for them. It is the opposite of hostility, apathy, or passivity. It is rooted in Paul’s command to hate evil the way an oncologist hates cancer—because it always destroys. GOODNESS is intent upon restoring to good, what evil has marred. Let’s consider three ways GOODNESS needs to be lived out in 2023.
A. GOODNESS longs for the restoration of every human to a personal relationship with God. GOODNESS leads to a restless intentionality in seeking to introduce Jesus to the lost. It is valuable to take note of how many different approaches there are to sharing our faith. It is not always interrupting a stranger on the beach.

Confronting approach: Peter Repent for the forgiveness of your sins (Ac 2:39) This approach to evangelism is often at the end point when the seeds that have been sown are ready to be harvested.
Intellectual approach: Paul So he reasoned in the synagogue and in the marketplace every day (Acts 17:7). Friendly apologetics discussions or giving C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity are frequent ways God brings others to faith.
Testimonial approach: Blind man. Whether he (Jesus) is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.
Invitational approach: Samaritan Woman. The woman went into town and said  “Come, see a man who told me all I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”
Interpersonal approach: Matthew (Levi). And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. This is warm, friendship evangelism.
Discovery approach: Andrew.  Andrew first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Andrew helped Peter find out more about Christ. This could be a book on marriage, parenting, apologetics or the video, Christianity Explored.
Service approach: Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity (Act 9:36). Acts of mercy powerfully open the hearts of the lost to the gospel.

B. GOODNESS refuses to allow evil to reign unchallenged. Paul commands, As we have opportunity, let us DO GOOD to everyone. This virtue includes the responsibility of God’s covenant people to teach our culture what is good and what is evil because it has been revealed to us through God’s special revelation, Scripture. Paul points out that the appointed role of government is to punish evil and reward good (Rom 13). But how does the state know what behavior is good or evil? The role of the church in God’s design of church/state relationships is to DEFINE good and evil. But many Christians today argue, “Churches shouldn’t get involved in political issues.” The subtext of the argument seems valid:

Politics deals with complex issues that can’t be boiled down to a right political position and a wrong political position.
All through history, politicians have tried to leverage Christians and the Bible to support their political ambitions.
The church must never be too closely linked with a political group or country–but exists universally INSIDE every country. Our true citizenship is in the Kingdom of Heaven, not the USA.

Let’s consider this argument carefully, starting with the term political issues. POLITICS is not a category of issues; it is the PROCESS we use to work through the issues in a democratic republic, where there is government of the people, by the people, and for the people. There are economic issues, moral issues, environmental issues, the definition of marriage issues, criminal justice issues, and educational issues. The political process in the West is what we use to work through any issue as we attempt to order our lives together.
For Christians, the critical question about an issue, then is not “is this issue being debated now in our political system” but “does God care about this issue?”

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