For those that are new to the topic, the essential question is “How do you explain to a young man what it means to be a man?” The answers various individuals have put forth are wide and varied. Some of them focus on the very practical aspects of this day and age, others have attempted to come at the question from a more philosophical and timeless perspective. As for me, given how solemn and timeless the question is, I’ve decided to search for an answer that will be just as valid when the young men I train are old men, as it is today, as it was when Solomon was considering the answer.

After much consideration, I’ve decided that there are five things that every man must know in order to be a Real Man™ (as defined by Bubba). I believe that these five things fully encompass all practical aspects of manhood and are of use in beginning the conversation. There is certainly room for developing much more under each of the five points, and there continues to be an ever changing need to adopt these five to the culture and time one is living in; however, I feel confident that if given no more than a few minutes to communicate what I believe the essence of “Being a Man” is, that these five points nail it.

1. Glorify God

This is the ultimate purpose of man and all else is subservient to this. Ultimately, this item is the one that will most affect a mans character, personal & private life, vocation, and random episodes of life. If a man has failed to pursue a proper understanding of his relationship to God, then he ultimately fails in all other aspects of life. Even non-Christians have historically and globally recognized a requirement for Real Men™ to  have a strong sense of spirituality that drives morality and ethics. How much more so does the Real Christian Man™ embrace this reality?

This is the deepest and most practical truth that I can possible communicate to young men (or anyone for that matter). Pursue God! Bend yourself to become a scholar of scripture that you might be prepared, at all times and in all ways, to bring glory to the name of the Lord. Do you grasp the Godly command towards labor? Really? Do you take pleasure in seeing the callouses form on your hands? Or do you resent that you must rise each day and work?

Perhaps you would do well to go research God’s original mandate to Real Men™ (ref: Genesis 1:28, ESV) and consider. If it is true that the ultimate purpose of man is to Glorify God, then the original mandate must in some way reflect that. I would submit that the original mandate does indeed reflect this. Real Men™ would do well to reflect on it and come to a clear understanding of the matter.

If a man can not get the pursuit of God’s Glory correct, nothing else he does is of any worth.

2. Pursue a Woman

Real Men™ know how to pursue a woman. Singular.

This pursuit might necessarily begin with less of a singular; but no more so than a wolf cutting one out of the herd. Most men pursue women, and this is primarily due to a failure on their part to understand point number one, which leads to a failure in the second most important aspect of their life. I do not know who to attribute the statement two, but this saying is true, “Man does not marry to cease the pursuit of women. Real Men™ marry to perfect the pursuit of one woman.”

Some (relatively small) portion of men, who are called to a single life, will perhaps raise the objection that this is not necessary knowledge. Particularly in their (marginal) case. They will perhaps point us to Christ or perhaps the Apostle Paul as examples of men who did not marry and thus …. yada yada yada. For those, I would simply point them back to the fact that we are proposing that Real Men™ are knowledgeable about this, not necessarily that they have “succeeded”. Then, I might chuckle a bit as I begin to point out how much Paul knew on the topic, as demonstrated by his writing with authority on said topic. Then, with an outright belly laugh, I’d point out Christ’s Epic Pursuit of His Bride.

If a man does not grasp how to invest his life in the pursuit of his bride, then everything else will fall apart.

3. Raise a Family

Real Men™ raise up other Real Men™ and Real Ladies™.

I ran across another true saying recently, and I can’t remember it precisely, but it was something along the lines of “If we tell our children about the gospel, then fail to pursue our wives; we effectively take our children by the hand and lead them into hell.” How can I stress enough that you need to be hard on the pursuit of God’s Glory and Your Wife before you have any hope of success in this arena?

You want to know something else? Other men (real or otherwise) will (are) judge(ing) you by your ability or failure to raise a family. I judge men by their children regularly. Dad is clever, he can perhaps hide his bad habit from me, and put on a face to manipulate my perception of him. His kids aren’t yet so mature, they tend towards just being who they are. Then, add in the observation of how Dad interacts with said children, and you can quickly get a Cliffs Notes understanding of the man you are looking at.

You want to get this one right, primarily due to the fact that YOU, FATHER, are responsible for each of these souls from day one. They are in your hand to mold, train, teach, educate, protect, love, discipline, cherish, and a string of additional verbs that a father must familiarize himself with. Start getting familiar.

Our culture is one that lacks Real Men™ and lacks Fathers. So all you marginalized, single for life, celibate dudes; don’t believe for a minute that you get a pass here. Adoption, Fostering, Big Brothering, <insert other pseudo father figure role here>. Get some!

4. Live in Community

How do you manage your relationship with your boss? Your co-laborers? You next door neighbor? The waitress at your favorite restaurant? The bartender? The barista? Your barber? The snot nosed kid(s) from down the street? The guy who lives next door?

Real Men™ have a mandate to live in community, and practically, you can’t escape it unless you are a hermit. You need to understand how to do this, how to love, care, and provide for people around you. Who do you extend your favor to? Who do you provide protection for? Who relies on you? How do you bear the weight of that responsibility? How do you show compassion to people that you don’t particularly have an innate desire to be around? There are as many questions and answers as there are people in your life.

The beginning of all the answers is in the first three points. Knowledge in those areas will bleed over and prepare you for getting this correct.

5. Wage War

At odds with the first four points, and perhaps some will say this does not belong on the list, but I can kick their rears. Strategy! Tactics!

When war is waged, someone is wrongly pressing their own agenda, aggrandizing themselves, or otherwise seeking their own desires at a cost to others. War is a hideous thing, and as one Real Man™ (General Robert E. Lee) once stated, “It is good that war is so horrible, or we might grow to like it.” However, it is a necessary knowledge for every man.

There are those who will say “But Bubba, shouldn’t we be peace loving, cheek turning, compassionate people? Isn’t this what your Jesus Christ taught.” To which I would respond, yes … that is a portion of what he taught, and taken in context it is precisely what Real Men™ aspire to. However, if I come around the corner, and find a rapist pressing a young lady into his service, my Jesus Christ isn’t calling me to turn the other cheek on her behalf. My God requires me to protect her, and I reckon I’ll bend all of my knowledge towards the most expedient and pragmatic approach to disabling said rapist.   A man who does not know how to wage war has no recourse in this situation, other than going and finding a Real Man™ to handle the situation for him.

We would go further to caution here that being a bully isn’t being a Real Man™. Using any, much more so this, knowledge to manipulate others and/or force them to your own service is a despicable thing, and if I catch you doing it I won’t be turning the other cheek on behalf of those you are doing it to. The balance here is that when a man is himself wronged, that man is called to be peace loving, slow to anger, cheek turning, and compassionate on his own behalf; but woe to those who would do harm my wife, my family, or my community.

Conclusion

This is a never ending learning process. None of us have arrived, we haven’t got any of this nailed, we fail. However, the difference between Real Men™ and adult males is that the adult males either do not improve or make such marginal improvements that they are nigh on imperceptible. Real Men™ strive with their entire being, all the force of the their passion, they hammer their own character out on the anvil of life, and they progress, the take manly strides forward, they become, by the grace of God, the man God has called them to be.

There are certainly practical and pragmatic considerations that are to be taken into account. Culture, age, era will more or less define things like how important is it for a man to understand how to leverage the internet (recommended knowledge in 2010 as opposed to 1810) versus how to hunt for food (I reckon that one is timelessly relevant). How to change a tire if of little use if you have never seen a vehicle and have no tires. But I am convinced that these five things remain true, that all else can be called into service under one or more of these, and that if I only have five minutes to tell someone what it means to be a man, that this will cover all the bases.

Tommy Jinks Socialism Day 1:
Guy with big ears gloating on TV. Wife found a bug in the potatoes. Already? Goofy guy with big ears and scary old chick say everything is gonna be alright now. He has a nice smile. Probably OK. More tomorrow.

Tommy Jinks Socialism Day 2:
Guy with big ears and ugly scary lady are on TV talking about happy things. I don’t feel happy. Guy with big ears says new taxes aren’t so much so that’s ok. The store is out of Toilet paper again; probably not related. Guy with big ears says Jew people are being bad again but that’s ok because we have new friends that wear handkerchiefs on their heads. Too bad. I liked the Jew people.

Tommy Jinks Socialism Day 3:
More happy talk on TV today about sick people. We must have a bunch! Red guys and Blue guys fighting. Blue guys are saying Red guys are not playing fair. Red guys are showing them the rules. Blue guys say Red guys are stopping progress worse than ever. Red guys say, “you said that last month make up your mind”. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Blue guys called me a dumb redneck… again.

Tommy Jinks Socialism Day 4:
Red guys and Blue guys still at it. The Goofy guy with big ears says he knows best. Red guys say they know best. Blue guys say that they know best. Everybody knows best but me… and you so we decided to ask the 9 people in black robes because EVERYbody knows that they know best. Except maybe the guy with big ears… and the ugly scary lady. They don’t like the people in black robes.

DATE: Saturday, 10th April

TIME: 1:00pm (that’s in the the afternoon)

LOCATION: Jinks House

Yes sir! Yes ma’am! It is clearly that time of year, and we haven’t had a good pig cooking since last fall!? It is clearly time to break out the fixin’s and get on our pig pickin’s. If you know us, yer certain ye don’t want to miss this. If yer getting to know us, and you made it to the Crawfish Boil, ye know you don’t want to miss this one. The rest of ye are just plain curious. This is how it works. We buy a pig and invite everyone else to come out. Everyone else brings a side dish (potluck) and we have us a good ole county feast!

Tommy owns four acres with a big creek that backs up to a forest preserve, so we have lots of woods to play in and will at some point in the afternoon take all the kids down to creek to play! (Yer gonna want to bring an extra change of clothes for ‘em and probably have ‘em wear some shoes that get wet … we know city kids don’t appreciate the joys of creek mud squishing through there toes!).

The Pig will begin cooking Friday night, and we will spend the night and next morning watching the fire and slowly bringing the pork to perfection. Once the pig is done, we will set up a buffet style –server yerself line, and people can eat at will. We will keep the fire going until late Saturday night and spend some time hanging out, telling stories, and just being country folks on a Saturday night.

What can you bring? Food, a big dish of home cooked goodness; and don’t skimp! big dish You probably want to bring a chair, we have some, but tend to run out.

What can you do? Contact us and let us know how many people are coming. Seriously, we need to plan how many pounds of pork to cook. This one is important to us.

References:

The Hog Log  | Pig Roast

That doesn’t tend to sit well with most folks. I think they really want to hear some juicy gossip about how I feel the big corporate entity did me wrong and I simply can’t continue to work there in good faith. Perhaps something about how the man was keeping me down? I’m not sure. The simple truth is that I have loved working at the bank and found a lot of joy there. I was allowed the opportunity to serve on numerous teams, afforded to ability to move from Chicago to Charlotte and continue employment at the same firm, and ultimately, the past year, to exercise my passion as a IT artificer and technology smith.

It is seldom that one gets the opportunity to do what they love alongside others who have the same passions and aptitude for realizing those passions, and there is no doubt that this was the case for me at the bank. I have a love for enormous, complex problem spaces, and the global nature of the organization afforded me just as many of those types of problems as I had an appetite for. There can be no doubt that I had fun and you should get no inference that I believe that would have ceased had I remained at the bank. Good times, good people, and a win-win situation all the way around.

The Lesser Reason

Of course, no job is utterly without its frustrations and rough edges. The nature of a global enterprise is such that change is slow and hard to affect, while a smaller organization can necessarily be more nimble and react quickly to changes. As a harbinger of change, the enterprise architecture approval process was my nemesis, sort of a primordial change resistant undertow constantly wearing one down. The enterprise technology team wasn’t incented to help solve my business problems; for example, it recently took six months to just get a new server racked and stacked. The promotion process is absolutely not about doing the right thing or even rewarding performance, it is all about who you know and whether you worked on a project that was important to them (and they realize it) the past year. The bank laptop is so standardized and “protected” that I felt it a better substitute for an boat anchor than a forge on which I might pursue my craft; and any conversation that swung towards changing that was met with a group of mercenaries hired to inflict pain and suffering. But seriously, the need for such process, methodology, and even social networking in a large organization is certainly needful and I would not present any argument that it is unwarranted (though I do have some ideas about making the laptops more usable!).

There are definitely some fun contrasts, and unfortunately for large organizations they tend to be contrasts that drive someone like myself to the smaller shop. In the new role, I was allowed to choose any laptop (Sony Vaio F Series, i7 w/8Gigs) I wanted along with any operating system (Windows 7 Ultimate) I desired … hello! That tends to be a pretty big win right there. I know the Bank OS builds would simply ignore any RAM over 4 Gigs … but even if they didn’t, wscript.exe would eat up all the resources anyway!

I get to innovate, really. Big enterprise will say, “Oh, we encourage innovation here. We desire innovation here. We reward innovation here. As long as the innovation is done on the reservation, within pre-defined limits, with pre-defined tools and technologies, in such a way that looks exactly like the 20+ man oversight committee has agreed to.” So, most people immediately realize that the sentence is flawed. We did innovate at the Bank, we did some awesome stuff, and we have the ROI calculators in place to demonstrate how we can attribute Tens of Millions of US Dollars back to the bottom line in 2009 as a direct impact due to the innovation, the reward was ok, but was, dare I say, significantly out of proportion with the performance and impact of the team, particularly over the past two years.

It would be great if big companies really did take the Google Innovation Time Off approach, but seriously … there are way to many risk averse bean counters at a Bank in America to be comfortable. How would they know that you are doing anything, much less something that will ultimately be worth what they are paying you to do, which is not to be fooling around with technology but solving real banking business problems. My new company encourages me to do what I love, play with technology, stay on the cutting edge, and if at all possible … define the next horizon, we be risky adrenaline junkies — Can I get a Whoot! Whoot!

You simply do not find guys like Joseph and Josh in big corporate cubicle farms. Oh, you might meet them in passing there (Drew Shields for example), but they are only moving thru on their way to positions that will allow them to leverage their skills in wild, wild, west of the unexplored. I want to work side by side with these guys, they are doing cool stuff! They are thinking uniquely cool thoughts! They are converting that stuff and those thoughts into reward while they are at it! Just imagine what we can do together, because that thought makes me giddy with excitement.

So, to recap, the new position allows me to do more of what I love, it allows me to do what I love my way, I get to work with some awesome guys, and all the while maintain the same standard of living (which was slipping away at that Bank). Had the opportunity not presented itself, I would not have been looking for a new job and would still be tweeting about how awesome the work from home program is, how fantastic the innovation team is, and how you do not want to invest time and energy in comparing your job with mine because you simply wouldn’t fare well. Most of you can stop reading here – you have some idea as to why now and it most likely satisfies you. However, it is the lesser reason.

The Greater Reason

The single, primary reason that I left Bank of America to work for Joseph at Signature Tech Studio? I am convicted that it is the decision that will ultimately most glorify my God. If you know me at all, you had to know that was it. I was aware of the a calling to work for Joseph long before he made the offer and even after he made some tentative advances that I played down. Once the offer was on the table, Tracey and I spent a solid four weeks praying about the decision and determining that we are both in agreement that this is where our God leads us, as redneck as I might be, I certainly require Tracey’s conviction that this is the correct decision for our family. Additionally, I shared this information with a few friends trusted for their wisdom and counsel, and they all encouraged the move as well.

You see, as intellectually blessed, as cool as the stuff they are working on is, as ready as they are to dive into a crazy, chaotic, techno-challenge – these men, Joseph and Josh, love my God and seek to serve Him in all they do. They do this with a passion that humbles me and makes me desire to be more like them as they are more like my Lord. To simply be interacting with them on a daily basis with things so mundane as how to best configure scheduled tasks on MS Windows is fantastic, but we also praise God together. We have prayed together more than the number of day’s I’ve worked there so far, and that doesn’t appear to be slowing down! This relationship among the men I strive with is what I most covet.

Dad used to tell me, “Son. The grass always looks greener on the other side. Remember that it rarely is when you look at it.” Dad was, as ever, correct.

The keyword is in the last sentence, rarely.

The good Lord has seen fit to let it be that the grass really is greener over here.

New Section Why are We Talking About It? – I added this section because a number of people asked why.
Removed Priorities Hierarchical Diagram – The Venn Diagram communicates far more.
Added Priorities Venn Diagram – Further clarification, I believe the VENN diagram ultimately does a far better job of presenting the association between the classifications.
Added a Class A Example.
Added a Class B Example.
Added a Class C Example.

Part 2 is yet to come, it seems reasonable that I ensure this is nailed down well before getting ahead of myself. Thanks for all the feedback!

So then, what is it that we are teaching here? What is the point of our review of these twelve verses? Quite simply to review what Paul defined a Christian as. Now, there are a number of layers to defining “what a Christian is” and we haven’t the time to go into all of them today. At some level, you can boil it down and simply say that a Christian is a disciple of Christ, one who believes in Christ for salvation, a follower of His ways.

Now that is a useful definition, and we could certainly go into greater detail in specifying exactly what justification, sanctification, and glorification have to do with being a Christian, or we could talk about what a sinner is and how grace makes a sinner a Christian.

But rather than go into so many technical details, we are simply going to take a mile high view of a Christian. Arguably, this view that we are going to take is the one that non-Christians should see – although in our society they rarely do.

This scripture in Romans provides us with a number of Apostolic Commands. Now you may think, what’s an Apostolic Command? Well, that my way of saying that an Apostle (in this case, Paul) made a directive statement (a.k.a. – a command) as to what Christian’s should do or how Christian’s should things.

I’m sure you are familiar with the Ten Commandments, which we are studying in the adult Sunday school at Christ the King church this Fall, and I highly encourage you to come learn more about them with us. So, as you are familiar with the Ten Commandments then let us say that these Apostolic Commands that Paul provides are a type of commandment, although we would certainly consider them of subservient to the Ten Commandments, they none the less carry all of the weight of scripture and are just as applicable to the lives of every Christian.

Lets read through the scripture one more time, and then let us break out the directive statements, or commands, that the apostle Paul is directing to those of us who claim Christ as our Lord and Saviour.

Romans 12:9-21

⁹Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. ¹⁰Love one another with brotherly affection. Out do one another in showing honor. ¹¹Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹²Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. ¹³Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. ¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited. ¹⁷Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. ¹⁸If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” ²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Now, by my count, we have twenty seven directives in this scripture. That is twenty seven statements that give us direct guidance on how we live our Christian lives, what we should be striving to show the world, and what those who are not Christians should see as the marks of our service to Christ. Let me list them off for you, as you follow along with the scripture.

1. Let love be genuine
2. Abhor what is evil
3. Hold fast to what is good
4. Love one another with brotherly affection.
5. Out do one another in showing honor.
6. Do not be slothful in zeal
7. Be fervent in spirit
8. Serve the Lord
9. Rejoice in hope
10. Be patient in tribulation
11. Be constant in prayer.
12. Contribute to the needs of the saints
13. Seek to show hospitality to the saints
14. Bless those who persecute you
15. Do not curse those who persecute you
16. Rejoice with those who rejoice
17. Weep with those who weep
18. Live in harmony with one another
19. Do not be haughty
20. Associate with the lowly.
21. Never be conceited.
22. Repay no one evil for evil
23. Give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all
24. So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
25. Never avenge yourselves
26. “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink;
27. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

So then, I am tempted to go through the list, directive by directive and explain to you what each directive means, help associate it with some action that you might take in your own life, and thereby show you how each is applicable to you today and ensure you understand how to apply it in your own life.

But as I look through the list, most of them, if not all or them, seem quite self-evident. Perhaps it is more profitable to discuss the body of instructions themselves than to delve into the specifics that most children probably understand quite handily.

This body of scripture is one which I recommend that you study in whole and seek to apply in your life everyday. It is unfortunately quite easy to say that all of this can be summed up by the commandments to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, – and to love your neighbor as yourself – and then ignore what that should look like. Our scripture today builds a framework for the Christian life on the foundation of those two commandments. It provides details that help enrich and clarify exactly how we love our neighbor as ourselves, it demonstrates precisely what it means to Love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, body, and soul.

Not only do I recommend that you study this scripture in whole, I would go so far as to suggest that it is well worth your time and energy to memorize it and make it a permanent part of your personal knowledge of scripture, to call it to mind regularly, and to use it as a template when you are making decisions.

It is certainly the type of scripture that is of the utmost applicability. While we can read any amount of other scripture, and walk away wondering how we apply it in our lives, this is scripture that is readily applicable. Read through it once every morning when you get up, perhaps before or after you do your daily devotions, maybe it is something that you could review at breakfast each morning. I promise you that such a practice would be ultimately rewarding once you attain the promise of Heaven.

How could your life not change if you were thinking in terms of these directives on a daily basis? Certainly we each choose poorly on occasion, and we make mistakes in the directions we go and some things we do. I can attest that I struggle constantly to make the right decisions, and I occasionally deceive myself into believing that some action I would like to take is “right” under the circumstance, or that Scripture doesn’t necessarily cover this decision and while it might be borderline, certainly I can get away with it.

However, as I come to terms with this scripture, I find few decisions that some aspect of these directives do not cover. From how to interact with someone whom I think dislikes me and is out to get me, to how I should handle troubles when they descend upon me, to who I should hang out with and associate with (how many of you have associated with the lowly recently?), to whether I should cry or rejoice with someone else.

There is such a myriad of topics that are directly applicable that it is difficult to conceive of compiling a distinct list. And of all these directives, I would like to close by bringing two of them into focus for you.

The first, this scripture starts with the command to let love be genuine, do you hear that, genuine. Why genuine? Why not some other adjective? Because we have a tendency to “fake” love. Look to First Corinthians 13 to find a clear definition of what genuine love is and then ask yourself how often it is prevalent in your life. Without love, we can do nothing. None of these directives mean anything if they are not empowered by love. Do not “pretend” – but seek to genuinely care for others and God and let that Love breath strength and life into your execution of these other commands.

The last, this scripture ends with the command to not be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. Every time you disregard one of the commands, you are being overcome by evil. That is to say, when you ignore the command to not avenge yourself, but you decide to “Get Even” – then you are being overcome by evil.

We are Christians, and our calling is a most holy and sanctified calling, we are to overcome evil with good. Not the self determined “good” by which we look at the world around us and declare ourselves “good” because in comparison we simply aren’t as “bad” as the rest of them. But with the “good” that God has defined and provided us amply example of in His Scripture. Remember these things, apply them in your life each day.

1. Let love be genuine
2. Abhor what is evil
3. Hold fast to what is good
4. Love one another with brotherly affection.
5. Out do one another in showing honor.
6. Do not be slothful in zeal
7. Be fervent in spirit
8. Serve the Lord
9. Rejoice in hope
10. Be patient in tribulation
11. Be constant in prayer.
12. Contribute to the needs of the saints
13. Seek to show hospitality to the saints
14. Bless those who persecute you
15. Do not curse those who persecute you
16. Rejoice with those who rejoice
17. Weep with those who weep
18. Live in harmony with one another
19. Do not be haughty
20. Associate with the lowly.
21. Never be conceited.
22. Repay no one evil for evil,
23. Give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all
24. So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
25. Never avenge yourselves
26. “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
27. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Yet this is precisely what we as Christians are called; nay, commanded to do. Jim Petersen, in his book Living Proof, states that a complete definition of evangelism, as described by Jesus and expanded upon in the epistles, involves two aspects:

1. The Proclamation of the Gospel: an action through which the non-Christian receives a clear statement of the essential message.
2. The Affirmation of the Gospel: a process of modeling and explaining the Christian message.

We are more familiar with the first, often treating it as the comprehensive means of evangelism. Proclamation is essential, but it is not the whole of the matter. The second is what I would call Lifestyle Evangelism; this is where we as Christians are the salt and light in this world. The existence of a unique people, whose lives are marked by God Himself, has always been fundamental to His program for reconciling the world to Himself. His people incarnate His Character; we are meant to audio-visualize the nature of His eternal reign.

It strikes me that New Year resolutions are analogous with becoming a Christian; by the transforming grace and power of God, we now desire to live new lives. Out with the old and in with the new. We are resolved, as Christians, to do, or not do, some actions. How many claim this new life … and then begin waiting for the time when they lose their “resolve”, break the resolution, and can get on with their life in much the same way they did in their “old” life? How rare is the individual that commits their life to Christ and then doggedly pursues Him through trials and tribulation? We are the first account of the Gospel that most people will ever read. Either they will desire more, having read us, or they will decide that there is nothing there for them. So let us resolve to live out the new life we now have in Christ!