Are You A Man of Character?
Volume 2, Issue 2 February, 2000
The Attraction of Christ:
Unconditional Love
By Michael DeAngelisBob looked down into his cup of coffee not sure what to say next. He had listened to Jim’s description of a life with Christ- fellowship, joy, feelin’ great, assurance, repentance, forgiveness- but he still feels empty.
Bob looks up from his last sip of coffee. "I don’t know, Jim," he says, "I don’t think it’s for me."
Despite Jim’s best efforts, he made one of the most critical mistakes Christians often make when sharing Jesus Christ. We all seem to talk about the benefits of being a Christian. But we often forget what attracted us to Jesus Christ- His unconditional love.
In 1 John 4, we are told about the unconditional love of God. As humans we have a need for love. When our families and friends do not exhibit this love, we begin to look in other areas- sex, drugs, and pornography.
First John 4 tells of a perfect love that does not expect love first, but instead accepts us for the wretched sinners that we are. We are told in verse 19 that there is no fear in love because fear has to do with punishment.
So we find that Christ did not come to punish or condemn (see John 3:17), but to love and to show that love through His offer of salvation.
Christ can then be portrayed as the loving father with his arms wide open welcoming each of us into His perfect love.
Now although we are able to love because we experience His perfect love, we do not love unconditionally. We are always putting on conditions. In fact, we often say love is reciprocal. But not with Jesus.
He desires to lovingly take our burdens, cleanse our hearts of sin, and care for us eternally, and He loves us in this way despite how terrible we have been.
Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of love. His love is the only type of love that can fill the void in our hearts no matter how deep that void may be.
So it goes without saying that we must share this love message with others. That’s what brings the penitent sinner to his knees and that’s what will bring a transformation in a life.
Let’s share the love of Christ with someone new each day.
Doc’s Prescription
By Dr. Ross Geldart
Men, are we courageous enough to take a closer look at an area within our lives in which we are supposed to be the experts? We all think we probably are the greatest romantics this world has ever known, but what do our wives have to say about us; or more realistically what do they really think about us? What about this love stuff? Are we really "the experts"?
Just what is LOVE, where does it come from? How do we receive it? How does love affect us and how does it affect the world around us? How do we respond to love?
First of all let us understand that generally what the world calls "love" is not love at all, but is merely "lust". Well, you say, what's the difference? Love is being gentle and kind, being soft-spoken and considerate of the feelings and needs of another. Love is patient, and enduring. Love is unconditional and not because a person has necessarily done something to please us, but because we make the choice to love. Love is being truthful at all times to the other person. Love is being consistent in all our ways, and if this thing called love applies in our personal relationships with others they can recognize that we are genuinely trustworthy.
Are these qualities shining through to your wife from you? Does she recognize them as belonging to you? Does she sense that you love her? Is she a part of you at all times? Does she sense that you treasure her?
Do you truly give of yourself in time and in substance? Do you share a relationship with God by praying and reading God's Word together with your wife?
How about the children? All these same thoughts apply equally to them. Do you spend time of encouragement with them? Do you teach them about God, and about Jesus Christ?
How about daily reading the Bible and how to pray. Do you tell them of your love for them, or do they have to figure it out for themselves? Do you teach them the difference between God's kind of LOVE and the world's "lust"?
Just in case you are not sure, Love always gives, while lust always takes. Love is always generous; lust is always selfish, deceitful, enticing and hurtful.
In John 3:16 we are told that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life".
See it was God who first loved us, and it was His Son, Jesus Christ, who loved us enough to lay down His life for you and for me. That is LOVE.
Finally, in John 13:44, 45 Jesus said "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another."
May God's love be yours forever more.
The Love of a Dad
My dad also loved me. I've known that from my earliest moments of awareness. I'm told that when I was a small child, perhaps three years of age, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment. My little bed was located beside the bed of my parents. Dad said it was not uncommon during that time for him to awaken at night and hear a little voice whispering, "Daddy? Daddy?"
He would answer quietly, "What, Jimmy?"
Then I would reply, "Hold my hand!"
My dad would reach across the darkness and grope for my little hand, finally engulfing it in his. He said the instant he encompassed my hand, my arm would become limp and my breathing deep and regular. I had gone back to sleep. You see, I only wanted to know that he was there!
-- Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives, Dr. James Dobson
From the Editor’s Desk… Gang Love: Our Christian Failure
"They really love me. That’s why I’m in a gang." Sounds incredible to think that teens think that guns, drugs, sex, and violence are signs of love.
As part of the initiation, a young man is beaten by his "brothers" to test if he can stand up to tough streets. Bloodied and bruised he asks for some lovin’ from his fellow gang members.
If we Christians have failed anywhere it has been in reaching the teens that live on the streets in gangs.
Why don’t we reach out to these tough-to-love teens? Is it that our heart truly isn’t right with the Lord? Do we lack an understanding of love ourselves?
We are told in Corinthians 13 that love is gentle and not proud. Love does not envy, hurt, or remember past bad deeds. Love is not living with a gang.
So, why do these teens look to gangs? All of these teens- bar none- have come from broken and abusive homes- homes that do not know or
show God’s love.
As Christians, our responsibility is to care for those who are lost, orphaned and abandoned by family and friends.
Our inability as modern Christians to reach out to those who are hurting has created the idea of gang love, a love that all too often ends in death.
We must connect with teens as mentors before they reach the gangs. And as mentors we can model the godly love that gangs can’t offer. Then, we can correct our greatest failure.
Love is the Doorway to our Children…
My home knew little of God's love, and I can still remember coming out of it. Entering into my own marriage, I prayed, "O God, I don't know what my kids will ever remember me for. I don't really care if they ever remember me as a well-known preacher or professor or writer. All I cry to You for, Lord, is that You will help them to remember me as a father who loved them."
Humanly speaking, I might never have been saved if someone hadn't "said it with love" to me. I was nine years old, a little terror. I was out playing marbles one day, when a man named Walt came along and invited me to Sunday School. There was nothing appealing to me about anything with "school" in it, so he made me another proposition -- one I liked a lot better. "Wanna play a game of marbles with me?" he asked.
After he'd wiped me out in a couple games of marbles, he inquired, "Wanna learn how to play this game better?"
By the time he'd taught me how to play marbles over the next few days, he'd built such a relationship with me that I'd have gone anywhere he suggested. You know what that meant? I ended up in his Sunday School class with a dozen other boys, most of whom he'd magnetized in very much the same way. Of the 13 boys in that class, nine were from broken homes, and five were Roman Catholics. Eleven of those boys ended up in vocational Christian work.
Thank God for a man like Walt, who "said it with love."
-- Say it with Love, Howard Hendricks
CAM Men’s Health-O-Gram:
Impotence. It’s just a part of growing older, right? Wrong. The Lord gave married couples sex for enjoyment at any age.Over the past ten years, doctors and researchers have found that several factors affect whether a man develops impotence or not.
First, remember that anything that is good for the heart and circulation is good for the penis. Since an erection involves adequate blood flow, high cholesterol and other heart disease indicators are related to the blood flow into the penis. Second, chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes can impair circulation leading to impotence. Finally, stress will most definitely impair blood flow and arousal.
What can you do? Eat healthfully. Exercise regularly and use stress reduction techniques to reduce the amount of stress you place on your body. Impotence does not have to be a part of your golden years.
For more information, contact your physician.
Do you have a men’s ministry in your church?
Who’s holding your men accountable?
Calling All Men can help you start a men’s ministry that emphasizes men’s small groups.
Call us at 781-279-7070 or e-mail us: CallingAllMen@CallingAllMen.org